So it begins.

Upon reviewing the film of Saturday's preseason opener, John Harbaugh met with the media again the following day to provide further updates and thoughts from the game. He began with what caught his attention against the Vikings.

"I mean, talking about 150, 200 plays, there's a lot of good things, a lot of things to correct," Harbaugh said. "All across the board, it would be hard to pinpoint any one thing for sure, but I would say the effort, just generally speaking. If there's one thing that would be more general, it would be just the effort, the attitude, the determination to try to do well. That was out there for sure, so I was happy with that. It was a good first step. We learned a lot, and we'll have a lot of corrections, a lot of encouragement to make tomorrow through the week for sure, and hopefully we can make a lot of progress to next week."

Here's what you need to know from the press conference:

📰 The Giants will alternate shells and pads at practice this week. They will have the pads on for Thursday's joint session in Miami before their preseason game on Saturday.

📰 The Giants didn't game plan much for the Vikings. Instead, they were more focused on the execution of the whole operation. Harbaugh was pleased with the sideline communication with the players, coaches, coaches to the box, and "all those kinds of things." They "didn't have really any issues with subs, the clock, and wrong formations.

"That's underestimated. It's easy to say, 'Oh, that should be expected.' But look around the league. It's not. So, I thought all that was really good. The things that we've got to continue to improve on and why we just called so many basic plays was because you've got to be able to block your plays against whatever look they give you. We had a lot of different looks from the Vikings. We had a lot of run pressures they gave us, a lot of run blitzes they gave us and things like that. We would be schemed up for those things in a real game, but let's just try to block that stuff and see how we do. That way we can kind of see how our rules are and see how our guys understand it. We learned a lot. Probably three or four or five even of the plays that weren't good in the run game were things that we can easily correct, but it'll be great to see. And then when game plan time comes around, we'll game plan a little bit more. So, not really looking at the play calling or the game planning as much as we are kind of how we operated and learn where we're at execution-wise."

On the sack that led to Jaxson Dart being evaluated for a concussion (and then cleared), Harbaughs said, "There's no way he should have been hit there. I mean, it just shouldn't have happened. That was a basic protection. Should have been protected and we expect in that situation to be protected in the future. I mean, it's not like he's going to be never hit, never tackled, never sacked. But it shouldn't have been in that one, and it shouldn't have been that easy to get to him."

📰 The Giants thought it was it was "too far into the wind there a little bit" to attempt a field goal from Minnesota's 44 on their last possession of the game. "I'm talking to [assistant head coach/special teams coordinator] Chris Horton about the field goal and all that. We both felt like that was just a little long to be realistic on. But we wanted to kick it. I mean, I promise you, we wanted to get him out there to try one. So, it just seemed a little too far. But maybe we would have knocked it through. And then the other thing is, we've got a really good chance to get the ball back there. I mean, there's over two minutes left. We've got three timeouts, I think we had. If we basically make a tackle, we're getting the ball back there to go kick the same field goal. I don't think it was the wrong thing to do at all. But you miss it, now they're in range. They get 10 yards, and they kick the field goal to put it out of reach, you know? So, it wasn't the wrong thing to do."

📰 Ty Siam, the Giants' director of football data and innovation, is on the headset with Harbaugh for game management decisions. "He did a good job. I was happy with it."

📰 Wide receiver Malachi Fields "didn't play like a rookie out there." The third-round pick had an "all-around" impressive performance from catching a touchdown in his first NFL game to running down on special teams coverage. "He did some things on special teams, which was cool to see. He practices that every day really well. He blocked exceptionally well in the run game as a wide receiver in some of those insert blocks and going to get to safeties and things like that, tremendously. Thought he ran his routes really well. Even when he didn't get the ball, the routes were run correctly. Right depths, right amount of steps, right splits. All those things that make so much [of a] difference that, really honestly, we need to clean up across the board to present better pictures for our quarterback."

📰 Things start to shake themselves out with the first game when it comes to rookies. "You do start to see some things, different kinds of directions that either confirm or reinforce or start to change your mind or whatever and the picture starts to clear up a little more after the first game. Not completely, but definitely with those young guys that you're asking about. The picture starts to clear up with those guys a little more and we start honing in on what the roles are going to be possibly going forward."

📰 For the most part, the rookies didn't get too overhyped and played with poise. "You want to slow your mind to free your body, we told them. My dad used to tell me this when I was in high school, take a deep breath. Take a deep breath before you shoot a free throw. Take a deep breath before the play starts. Just take a deep breath and slow your brain down a little bit."

📰 The Giants "might have a situation" running back Dante Miller. "We'll see with a soft-tissue, groin-type thing. We'll see how that turns out today. That's about the only [injury update] right now."