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Giants Wrap Up NFL Mandated Acclimation Period; What’s Next?

Jul 30, 2026; White Sulphur Springs, WV, USA; New York Giants cornerback Korie Black (38) and New York Giants cornerback Deonte Banks (2) and New York Giants running back Eric Gray (20) talk during training camp at The Greenbrier Resort Sports Performance Center. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

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Giants Wrap Up NFL Mandated Acclimation Period; What’s Next?

Originally posted on New York Giants on SI
By Patricia Traina | Last updated Aug 1, 2026 6:41 PM ET

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After a four-day, fairly intense set of practices, things are about to get real for the New York Giants.

“It'll be a very similar practice; it'll just change the tempo of the period,” head coach John Harbaugh said.

Oh, and the pads are coming on first thing Monday now that the mandatory acclimation period is over, though Harbaugh said the plan wasn’t to tackle to the ground on Monday.

“We’ll be doing what we call ‘wrap and release,’” he said. “We're trying to stop the ball carrier if we can on defense and get the pads behind us on offense, things like that. I’m sure inside will be a little more physical than it is out here without the shoulder pads. It just ramps up just a little bit. But other than that, everything will be the same.”

The Giants' first week at The Greenbrier was chock-full of football, with the practices starting at 90 minutes before going to a nearly full two hours. Next week the schedule calls for the practices to max out at two and a half hours, with there being six practices scheduled in a row as the Giants wrap up their stay at The Greenbrier.

So far, though, Harbaugh believes the team has made some good progress as it gets itself ready for Week 1 of the 2026 season.

“You don't really measure (progress) too much other than just try to get as good as you can in everything you can,” he said.

“I felt like today was a good step because a lot of the things that we were working on from yesterday and the first couple of days, you saw the improvement today in terms of execution. That's what you really like to see. Better today than you were yesterday. That’s the measuring stick. I felt like we did that today.”

The team now gets Sunday off to recharge before getting into the next step of its preparation for the season, preparation that Harbaugh said could include full tackling for certain players.

“We’ll see where we’re at,” he said.

Here are some more takeaways from the day at camp.

Good Situations

Harbaugh’s practices have been carefully scripted to include a lot of situational football–two-minute drills, fourth-quarter work, hustling the field goal team on and off the field, etc. so that the players are prepared for everything and anything.

“We're focusing on the things that we think we really need to get good at for this team,” Harbaugh said. “There is a lot of fourth quarter work, you've probably noticed. But also, we've always done that.”

One area that has been heavily emphasized so far has been the two-minute drill, and with good reason: the Giants were terrible in that part of the game.

Last season with Jaxson Dart as the quarterback, the Giants ran 76 plays during the two-minute drill and scored four touchdowns. That comes to one score for every 19 plays, which is abysmal considering there are just two two-minute periods per game.

It hasn’t been perfect just yet, but Harbaugh is okay with that at this stage in camp.

“It's okay if we don't know exactly what we're doing or we don't quite have the play calls down yet,” he said.

“We want to expose them to all those situations right out of the gate because those things are going to be things that actually win you games. Those are game-winning play opportunities usually. So, we want to be as good as we can be at that stuff.”

Thibodeaux Motivated to the Max

IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Outside linebacker Kayvon Thibodeaux has plenty of motivation driving him toward what he hopes will be his best season yet.

Besides the fact that he’s in a contract year with zero financial assurances beyond this season, Thibodeaux has been mostly working with the second-team defense, behind Abdul Carter on the depth chart.

Both Harbaugh and Thibodeaux have downplayed the fact that the outside linebacker is second-string, with Harbaugh calling Thibodeaux his third starting linebacker and Thibodeaux saying it’s still ball regardless.

As far as Thibodeaux is concerned, the focus isn’t on what string he’s lining up with but how he does with his opportunities.

“You just want to be the best player you can be,” he said. “Keep finding ways to help the team, keep moving,” he said.

This article first appeared on New York Giants on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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