The Giants worked extensively off cards again during Tuesday's practice, meaning one side ran scripted plays to game plan for the upcoming opponent, which happens to be the Jets on Friday night. So, as coach Pat Shurmur warned, take it with a grain of salt when you hear about who made plays over whom in these types of practices.
"We're looking at the effort on the other side of the ball, but we're trying to mock up what the other team does," Shurmur said inside the fieldhouse at the Quest Diagnostics Training Center after practice. "It's probably hard for you, if so and so made a play on so and so, it probably screws up your calculations, but we're looking at obviously the execution of the team working against the cards, but it's also making sure that we get the good effort.
"And that's part of it really at this point, because when the season starts, these are drills where they need to be competitive, but if it's for the offense, the ball goes up and we've got to make sure the offense makes a play, and when it's for the defense and the ball goes up, we disrupt it. There's learning involved so that once we get to the season, we can do that and get as much out of it as possible."
With that in mind, here are the players who made the biggest plays on Tuesday:
WR AMBA ETTA-TAWO: In the past, coaches groaned any time they saw one of their players make a one-handed catch. But times have changed. In fact, Pat Shurmur has them practice it because you never know when a receiver – or even a defensive back going for an interception – gets arm-barred and can get only one hand on the ball. Case in point: Etta-Tawo's red-zone touchdown on Tuesday. Backup quarterback Davis Webb dropped a perfect pass into the back corner of the end zone, but cornerback Grant Haley swiped Etta-Tawo's right hand, forcing the 6-foot-1, 208-pound receiver to make the catch with his left hand for the score. The two hooked up for multiple touchdowns today.
WR ALONZO RUSSELL: Russell, who spent time on the practice squads of the Bengals and Cardinals over the last two seasons, is making a push for a spot on the Giants' 53-man roster, which will be finalized by the league deadline of 4 p.m. ET on Sept. 1. He caught a pair of red-zone touchdowns on Tuesday, the first coming from Alex Tanney through traffic in the back middle of the end zone. The other was from rookie Kyle Lauletta in the back corner.
CB JANORIS JENKINS: Quarterbacks were throwing touchdowns left and right in the red zone, but Jenkins made the defensive play of the day with a little more space during seven-on-seven drills. Odell Beckham Jr. got a step on Jenkins up the left sideline, and Eli Manning threw it deep to him. However, Jenkins caught up and timed his jump perfectly to knock the ball away with his left hand.
TE EVAN ENGRAM: Manning and Engram continue to up the difficulty level at practice. The most technical play of the day wasn't a touchdown or a long throw. Rather, it was an intermediate pass that Manning put the right pace on to get it over the linebackers and underneath the oncoming safety. On the other end, Engram made a one-handed snag and got both feet inbounds quickly enough to complete the catch on the right sideline. It is easy to get jaded by the athleticism and skill displayed on a daily basis at NFL practices, but only a select number of people on this planet can make that throw and that catch.
