Not quite rookies anymore. Not quite sophomores yet. The Giants' class of 2011 walked through the doors yesterday at the Timex Performance Center feeling somewhere in between.
"A little bit," linebacker Greg Jones said Tuesday morning when asked if he felt like a second-year player. "Right now, I kind of still feel like a rookie. Just getting to know the guys, I'm not as nervous – it's not like you need to be because everybody is cool around here. You've got to get out of your shell a little bit, and as a rookie at the time, you always want to watch what you say. But it's just all about jelling with everybody overall. I feel really good about my situation."
One thing they were certain about, however, was the benefit of a traditional offseason. Last year's rookies had an expedited welcome to professional football with the lockout lasting until late July.
That won't be the case this season for the 10 "rookies" on defense entering their second campaign.
"We need it," Jones continued. "All of us, we wanted to have that fair shot. Vets came in who already knew what to do and were able to communicate effectively on defense. As rookies, we weren't able to do that because we only had part of the defense in our brain, and while we're learning the defense, we're trying to learn and get ready and prepare for the offense of the opposing team. So it was hard. It was hard, but I think this will definitely help out a lot."
And it all starts this week.
"Then my big thing, for myself, is to learn this defense," he said. "I think that was the one thing that really held me back – that I was unable to learn the defense completely. I had bits and pieces, but now I can learn it completely."
The last we heard from Jones was following the Super Bowl when he proposed to his girlfriend on the field. The two set a date in July of next year.
"We got a lot of planning out of the way," he said. "We've still got a little left, but we're just finishing up things now. I got a lot of feedback. It was all positive, which is all I can ask for."
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