For the New York Giants, Friday’s 22-16 preseason win over the crosstown New York Jets wasn’t necessarily pretty but one position sure felt good for ‘Big Blue.’
Kicker Aldrick Rosas showed that he is in mid-season form, hitting all four field goal attempts in the Giants second win of preseason. Rosas hit from 48-yards on the night and also converted his one point-after attempt, building on last week where he connected from 55 yards out in the Giants win at the Detroit Lions.
Rosas struggled a bit last year, going 18-for-25 in his rookie year. But his showing in preseason gives the Giants a boost in an area where they weren’t necessarily settled this offseason.
“It was terrific. When you make your field goals when we’re stalling out like that and you get points on the board, it’s huge,” Giants head coach Pat Shurmur said. “I think sometimes we forget if you miss those kicks, then they’re presented with immediate good field position going the other way, so I was very pleased with that. His kickoffs were good and solid; he’s a big, strong guy. I think both of our specialists Riley Dixon and then Aldrick, they look like football players to me. They’re big strong guys and I thought they executed kicking and punting very well.”
With this performance, Rosas has essentially wrapped up the kicking competition. It was big and much needed for the Giants as the offense struggled to move the ball effectively.
The Giants close out preseason on Thursday night against the New England Patriots. With the short week, Shurmur said he’s going to try and evaluate the depth on his roster and that some of the stars are likely to sit.
“Here’s the deal. There will probably be some guys that won’t play in this game, and it goes without saying,” Shurmur said.
“What’s important is we’re still in training camp, so what we’re going to do is, the guys that we know are going to play in the game, and I’m not going to talk about who they are or who won’t play, but the guys that are going to play in this game, we’re going to use a portion of practice to get them ready to play the Patriots. It’s important that some of the guys that might not be playing in this game, it’s like training camp, so the padded practices are important and the work that we do is important, especially the Giants-on-Giants phase of things. It kind of runs parallel, so we will structure the practice sessions to reflect that.”
