Best of the Giants on WFAN: John Harbaugh takes on the media

Boomer Esiason (0:00)

Here's the other part about this whole John Harbaugh thing. Like, we had him on, you know, he did want to play the guys in preseason. Nobody wants to play guys in preseason. And Jaxson Dart played a little bit, Jameis played some, Odell Beckham played some, Malik didn't play at all, and rightfully so. But the point being is that, are the practices noticeably different from what they were from previous groups?

I guess with the exception of Tom Coughlin.

Phil Simms (0:26)

Right, all the way back to Tom Coughlin before I would say that. In other words, the practices are exactly what you would want to see as a head coach, an owner, ex-player, whatever. It's really high energy, not a lot of talking going on except the coaches, the players are just in and out. It's amazing how busy they keep them for two hours and maybe sometimes two and a half hours on the field.

Boomer Esiason (0:51)

So it's also a competitive practice.

Phil Simms (0:54)

Oh, big time.

Boomer Esiason (0:55)

I mean, they're hitting, right? I mean, they're thudding, at least thudding.

Phil Simms (0:57)

Yeah, it's like players are running in and on the field from the sideline coming out in and out. I'm like, what the hell is going on here? I can't even figure it out. Figure it out. But the big thing about that is the energy is real.

And I talk to a lot of the players, they hang around, we talk, and you know what? None of them complain one time for one word to me about anything or about John Harbaugh because he's got them, they know what he's doing. It's the right thing and you know, I think they've done a really good job of drafting this team right now. And of course, preparation wise, he said this to us too, about the injuries and not playing in preseason. He goes, you know, years ago, we'd have four or five guys get hurt and we didn't think about it. Now, if you get one person hurt, it's a disaster, you know? So that's one of the reasons why they keep, most teams around the league kept their players, starting players out of the preseason games.

Gio Urso (1:57)

Now, not to crap all over Brian Day, well, he's not here anymore. But one thing that I really did notice when they made the switch and Kafka comes in and Abdul Carter gets disciplined. And then you heard some of the other players around that. It almost sounded like they were yearning for discipline. They were yearning for a little more structure, which struck me as was great to hear. But I was also surprised because you, you always assume that today's athlete doesn't want that type of thing, but it seems like the Giants are reacting really positively to that exact thing that we assume that they don't want, which is more practice, more structure and more discipline.

Phil Simms (2:32)

Well, you know, when you lose a lot in the NFL, you want to do something to change it. And you want to change your life, your football team, your job, your money, it's everything. And the thing about it is, like I said, I never heard not one guy, one player, anybody said anything derogatory about John Harbaugh. So when he walks into the room every day, you sit up straight, you know you got to do it, and here's the man, that's it. Dan Reeves, after two bad years with the Giants, we had terrible years, we get the team together, he walks in, you know, with the beautiful suit, the tie, the hair is perfect, whatever. He stops, puts his yellow notepad on the lectern, looks out at us and he goes, sit up straight, put your feet on the floor and take those damn hats off.

And well, and soon he did it, Bart Oates, my center, was like, as close as you are to me, Gio, and I turned to him, I went, we're gonna win, just like that.

Boomer Esiason (3:29)

Yeah, well, I mean, that's a big part of it. You know, we're talking to the great Phil Simms. All right, so I gotta ask you, Jaxson Dart, there's a lot of pressure on him, there's a lot of pressure on this opening game, the Dallas Cowboys come to town, they got one of the best offenses in football. I don't know about the secondary just yet about the Giants, but Jaxson Dart is the great hope now. And rightfully so, after what we saw last year, do you see significant improvement in his preparation and what he looks like in practice and what you saw in preseason?