Giants 'looking forward' to joint practices with Lions, Jalin Hyatt continues to make plays

After nearly two weeks of training camp and practicing against teammates, wide receiver Sterling Shepard is ready for the joint practices the Giants will hold against the Detroit Lions this week ahead of Friday’s preseason opener.

“Just looking forward to going against somebody else,” Shepard said on NFL Network Monday.

“We’ve been going at it with each other for a couple of weeks now, and everybody’s kinda getting tired of each other,” he said. “So it’s good to go against some other guys that haven’t gotten to see the offense and get a real good look at what we’re gonna be looking at [in] game time.”

Head coach Brian Daboll believes the practices in Detroit will be beneficial in giving the players new looks.

“You’re going against a different team,” he said Monday. “You get to see different matchups, you get to see different schemes, you’ve been going against the same players for 10 days or 10 practices.

“So if you do it the right way, I think it’s a beneficial thing for you.”

Over the weekend, Daboll said he and Lions head coach Dan Campbell had not spoken directly yet, but the two organizations have been talking to establish a script for the workouts.

“Once you get going to plan these, the coordinators are in communication to make sure the practices are the scripts,” he said.

“We kind of set up the scripts and what we want to try and accomplish in the practice back in June or whenever it was we talked,” he said, adding that they will coordinate more in the coming days about what teams have injury-wise and if certain portions may be cut and others could be added to the plan. “Those are conversations that will take place, but have a lot of respect for Dan. Done a great job. Go out there and have some productive days, that’s the most important (thing).”

Jalin Hyatt catching on

The Giants’ third-round draft pick has been one of the big talks of training camp, turning heads with his speed and ability to get behind the defense.

“Our young bull Jalin, he’s been blowing the top off,” Shepard said of Hyatt. “We’ve got some guys that can run.”

While his head coach said he has been “good” so far, there is still plenty of steps he has to take in the process.

“He’s made plays when it’s come his way,” Daboll said. “Still got a long way to go, but he’s had a productive few days here.”

While everything about Hyatt is fast – 4.4 speed in the 40 – Daboll doesn’t believe he is developing any faster than the normal rookie.

“I think everybody’s different,” he said. “I don’t really have expectations when rookies come in because I’ve been doing this for quite some time, I’ve seen a variety of things. Just keep your head down and keep grinding.

“There’s a lot of things that’s going to come up, whether it’s a mistake, a mental error – you hear one thing and run a different thing and then when you have opportunities, make the plays, but I’d say there’s a lot of room for growth.”

When asked about a comment wide receiver Darius Slaton made about rookie receivers picking up the offense, Daboll said he thinks “everybody’s different based on how they learn, where they come from.”

“It’s on such an individual basis. There’s people that pick it up faster, people that it’s a little bit slow for, and then it hits and then they start going,” he said. “I think the biggest thing for us is to not be instant evaluators when ‘aw, this guy can’t get it.’ I mean, you put a lot of research and time into trying to bring people in that you think can learn the material and things like that. I think everybody’s a little bit different so it’s times that you’ve got to pull it back, there’s time when you can add more.

“I’ve had young rookies pick it up like this,” the coach said while snapping his fingers.