After practice today, head coach Pat Shurmur and players spoke to the media. This is what you need to know from the pressers:
1. Addition to the offensive line. The Giants signed former Rams guard Jamon Brown off waivers during the bye week. Brown, who was waived by the Rams the day before he signed with the Giants, started in 30 out of 42 games he's played in throughout his four years in the league. Brown is excited to join the team and showcase what he can bring to the line.
"I played both sides, right guard and left guard," Brown said. "I'm going to bring energy. I think I'm a high-energy guy. I think I will be reliable, just because I've been doing it for a while. I've experienced my times of success. That's pretty much it, and whatever coach needs is what I'm going to try to bring."
Coach Pat Shurmur and his staff were excited to bring him in and are excited to see what he can do for the team.
"He's a good looking guy and we've spent – what we've been allowed to do this weekend – time with him," Shurmur said. "He was here all day yesterday, and he's picked things up fairly quickly. You saw he was out there already, and I think [offensive line coach] Hal [Hunter] and [assistant offensive line coach] Ben [Wilkerson] have done a good job getting him up to speed. We're going to try to get him in there as quickly as possible. This guy started the whole season, had a little incident where he's no longer starting, and we were thrilled he was available. He's a big man, he's athletic, and he certainly looks the part in some of the reps I saw today. We'll get him up to speed quickly."
2. RJ McIntosh ready to go on Monday. After being out for all of training camp and for most of this season, defensive tackle RJ McIntosh is being elevated to the active roster and will be available to play on Monday. McIntosh learned to be patient throughout this long period of being out of football.
"It's been very frustrating," McIntosh said. "I learned to be patient and wait on my time, which now it is. You got to be able to go out there and execute, know my stuff and like I said, it was a little frustrating at first, but you learn to be patient."
McIntosh has been waiting a long time for this day and is ready to get out there and help the Giants out immediately.
"I'm a hardworking guy," McIntosh said. "I think my specialty is pass rushing and I want to be able to be a big factor in that and also be an all-around guy. Help the D-Line room, help the defense and hopefully I'm a big factor in that."
3. Finding the common denominator. The bye week gives players a chance to rest up, reset, and get recharged for the following weeks after the bye week. For the Giants, it comes during the middle of the season where they look to turn around from a 1-7 start. For Shurmur, the head coach and offensive play-caller spent the bye week looking over how the team can improve.
"It comes down to points," Shurmur said. "When you look at it, if we score one more touchdown a game, then for the people that crunch numbers, that's a good thing, and for the people that crunch numbers, that puts us in a position to win half those games we played. Scoring in the red zone is an important thing when we get down there, and there's tactical things that we need to do better."
Shurmur added: "Then there's certainly things that players can do better. Those are the things you look at, you think of the situations in the games, the players you have in the games available, how you're trying to get the ball to certain people, so you go back and revisit that and do it at a pace where it's much slower than if you were getting ready to play a game."
4. Saquon Barkley looking to get better. As the second half of the season begins for the Giants, running back Saquon Barkley looks to continue his impressive start. However, Barkley believes he can always get better.
"There's always room for improvement," Barkley said. "I think everyone on this team can get better, we know that. Especially for myself, just self-scouting myself, there's so many places where I can improve in every part of my game, every phase of my game. I'm always going to have room to improve and that's what drives you, and that's what makes you compete to try and continue to get better."
Barkley not only leads by example on the field, but is also a leader in the locker room as a rookie, according to his teammates.
"That means a lot hearing that from guys on this team because at the end of the day that's the only thing that matters is the opinions of your teammates," Barkley said. "Just being myself, that is the best advice that I got coming into my rookie year and that's something that I'm going to continue to try to do is be myself and be vocal, play hard and compete, the rest will take care of itself."
5. Kyle Lauletta ready to bounce back. Following his arrest last Tuesday, rookie quarterback Kyle Lauletta is ready to move forward from what happened and is ready to get back to football.
"My parents raised me better than that and it's tough, but you just got to move forward from it and take it as a lesson and hopefully that'll be an example to some players, to some people someday and just goes to show I can't put myself in those situations," Lauletta said. "I'm very regretful that I did and I'll do everything that I can to make sure that that doesn't happen again. These guys know who I am and these guys know what I'm about, but it's still unfortunate and I have to deal with the consequences and that's that."
