Welcome back. It's the big blue banter. New York Giants football podcast. I'm Dan Schneier. I joined as always my coach, Nick Falado. And today a special guest, a reoccurring guest, John Schmelk. And we are so excited to get you on here, John, because we've been touting this and we've been talking about this. And we love to get your perspective as somebody who's there every single day. And now we actually have a little bit of boots on the ground ourselves because Nick has been at Giants practices and he's now working with the media as a credential member. And it's really good to get his insight as well. I know you two met live at camp, which was fun too. Nick told me about that. So that was cool. But yeah, John, today we're doing another free flowing conversation, little state of theants, what we're picking up. So maybe we start here. Let's start with just your overall impression from the first Giants preseason game. Yeah, and by the way, Nick has rolled in there, rolled in here with that mustache of his, and then he has fit right in. It's been good. It was catching up with him. I'm sorry. I wanted to get the line and what was your question i just thought the first thought but maybe yeah just too thinking about the must just look a lot of people are thinking about the mustache these days i understand it's starting to grow even more this kids just rocking it uh diana is a saint for letting that thing grow i like it but i don't know most i didn't i didn't know it was popular with most women but you know what nick she likes it and that's good but let's talk about giants football here and i want to start with just your initial impression of the first preseason game yeah look and look the giants we're going to try to do anything crazy in this game whether it was good weather or not to be honest with you you know brian dable is going to simplify the playbook i don't think he's going to show you a lot for most of the preseason, to be honest with you. You know, Brian Dable is going to simplify the playbook. I don't think he's going to show you a lot for most of the preseason, to be honest with

you.

But I thought the Giants came out. They executed their fundamentals pretty well. I thought the tackling for the most part was okay. You had a couple of mistackles in the second half of this game. Nick Adams had one late that jumps in my head off the top of my head.

But I think you wanted them to be to block well, be physical and tackle.

And I think for the top of my head. But I think you wanted them to block well, be physical and tackle.

And I think for the most part, they did that.

And look, when you can go out there and run for 155 yards and do it pretty efficiently

from the running back position with three different guys, I think that's a win in preseason

game number one where you're really, you know, tackling to the ground, playing in a live situation for the first time.

So those would be my major takeaways without trying to do too much analysis of individual

or team performance.

I want to stay on the running back position just for a little bit because the fanfare is

about Eric Gray right now.

Rightfully so.

He had a fantastic game.

The two touchdowns, a long run.

Absolutely juked Morris Norris out of his shoes, which was fantastic because of that

dirty hit that Norris threw on Gray in practice that popped this helmet off.

But I want to focus on Tyrone Tracy because it seems like Tyrone Tracy has an inside track to the running back to the New York

Giants, right? Now, different skill set that Eric Gray, but going through some of the tape,

he had a couple missed tackles at the line of scrimmage as well. I counted two against

number, against number 41 of the lines, had a nice pass block. I think he missed one hole as well,

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