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Diehl Selected Pro Bowl Alternate |
By playerpress.com wire service
December 16, 2008 |
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Dave Diehl, starting left tackle for the Super Bowl champion New York Giants, today was named a Pro Bowl alternate for the NFC.
Diehl, a fifth-round draft pick by the Giants in 2003 who has not missed a game since he was drafted, is the third alternate to go to Hawaii and play in his first Pro Bowl.
Two of Diehl’s partners on the Giants’ line, center Shaun O’Hara and right guard Chris Snee, will play in the Pro Bowl, Snee as a starter and O’Hara as a reserve.
If a member of the Pro Bowl team has to drop out because of injury or personal reasons, the next alternate is given the first opportunity replace him.
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| A Week in My Life |
By playerpress.com wire service
October 9, 2008 |
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I’m sure fans wonder what goes on with the team in between Sundays. So here are the basics of my work week during the season:
MONDAY
We go to our training facility and lift and run. We have to be done by 11:30 a.m. And the lifting and running are mandatory. We have a special teams meeting at 11:30 and then a full-team meeting at 12:15 where the coach gives out game balls for offense, defense and special teams from Sunday’s game. Everyone gets a grade sheet to tell you how you did in the game. If you got a knockdown, that’s on there.
After that we break down into offense and defense for meetings and go over all the good things we did, all the bad things we did, and as an offense we usually watch the first quarter of the game we just played.
Then we break down into position groups and watch film. After that we go outside and walk through our corrections, because you want to do that while the game is still fresh in your mind. We’re done by about 2:30 or 2:45 p.m.
Usually after practice on a Monday I will get a massage and acupuncture, sit in a cold tub, start getting my body healed up and feeling fresh after mashing all day on Sunday. The day after a game you’re sore, banged up, you just went out there the day before and for 60-plus minutes constantly smashed into people, so you do what you can to work on your body.
I think it’s important to try to have at least one night a week with my wife, and usually it’s Monday because practice is short. Our daughter, Addison, is 22 months old, and as much as we love her you still have to work on your own relationship. When you have a child there’s not all the time in the world to spend together, so Monday night we go out, either with other players and their wives or just the two of us. Eli will come with his wife, or the offensive line will all go out together, or my wife and I will just have a nice bottle of wine and go out for dinner and talk, just the two of us.
TUESDAY
This is the day off all through the NFL. I usually spend as much time as possible with my little girl, in the backyard on the playset. I’m so busy during the week, I don’t get home until about 5 o’clock and she goes to bed at 8:30. That gives me a very limited amount of time to spend with her, so Tuesday I spend as much of it with her as I can.
WEDNESDAY
We get to the facility and the offensive and defensive lines lift at 7 a.m.
At 7:45 there’s a special teams meeting with the kickoff group, kickoff returns and field goal units.
At 8:25 we have a full team meeting where we’re introduced by the coaches to the team we’re going to play on Sunday. Coach Coughlin runs this meeting, he runs down the other team’s personnel and tells us what they do well and what they don’t.
Then we break into offense and defense for meetings. As an offense we go over what fronts they run, the different packages they do. Another coach goes over their blitz packages and we install the plays for our running game and passing game.
Seattle was a 4-3 team, but this week we’re playing Cleveland and they’re a 3-4 team. A lot of the schemes are different, so they’re blocked differently. Plus, you have to show the defense something a little different every week so you don’t show all of the same tendencies.
Even though defensive players aren’t as smart as offensive players, they will still eventually catch on if you don’t change anything week-to-week. ;-)
After meetings we go out on the field and have a jog-through of what we’re going to do. Wednesdays we focus hard on first and second downs.
After the jog-through we come back in, get in our gear, put on our helmets and shoulder pads and have a full practice, about two hours or 2:15. After we come back in, hit the showers and eat lunch. We have a great big buffet line with almost anything you could want, cold cuts, chicken, steak, vegetables, lots of healthy foods.
Then there’s another special teams meeting to watch practice on film, and after that we break up into position groups again and watch more practice. It’s important to watch every aspect of practice on film because we have a scout team that runs the defense of the opposing team, stunting and blitzing like they do to give us a good look at what it will be like on Sunday.
THURSDAY
Thursday is a lot like Wednesday, except we focus on third downs. All the meetings are at the same times and we usually practice until about 4:15 p.m.
There’s no full team meeting, we go right into offense-defense meetings and go over third-down packages, called “sub-defenses” because there a lot of substitutions from the basic, or “base” defense, used just for third downs. You also have different packages for third-and-long.
There’s the jog-through, meetings, all the same except you’re always looking at third downs.
FRIDAY
Again, same times as Thursday and Wednesday, but on Friday you focus on short-yardage situations, third-and-1, third-and-2 and goal line. We focus on the “Green Area,” or from the 20-yard line and in. Most teams call it the “Red Zone.” We call it the Red Zone when we’re on defense, but the Green Area when we have the ball. That’s Coach Coughlin’s idea, because he says when our D is in there it means stop and when it’s our offense we need to go.
We don’t have any post-practice meetings on Friday, we try to get off our feet and start resting, get our bodies healed. I get massage and acupuncture again.
SATURDAY
The first thing I do is hop in the cold tub for 10 or 15 minutes to treat my soreness.
Then there’s the special teams meeting and we break down into offense-defense. We talk about how the game is getting closer, how things went in practice, and after that there are positional meetings and we watch practice from Friday.
We go out on the field for a walkthrough for an hour…we practice getting the kickoff team on the field, the kickoff return team off. Any type of situation you could come up with, we run through the script right then, third down, move the field, Green Area. Mayday, no time on the clock, rushing the field goal unit out on the field and the regular team off. We’re usually done by noon.
If it’s a home game, we stay in a hotel the night before the game. I won’t say which hotel, although it’s really not a big secret anymore because there are always like a thousand fans there. We don’t have to be anywhere until 7:30 p.m., which in Coughlin time is 7:25 p.m., for a special teams meeting.
Then we break down into offense and defense, watch the opposing defense some more, we watch tons of film. We talk about different plays, different problems we’ve had and other teams have had.
Then we relax until Sunday.
If we’re on the road, after a walkthrough at about noon we shower, get box lunches and fly out to wherever, where we have the same 7:25 p.m. meeting we would have had at home.
SUNDAY
Game day. If it’s a 1 p.m. game I’m up at 8 a.m. for a stretch, take a shower and meet the team for our pregame meal from 8:45 to 9:45. After that I go right to the stadium. I like getting there early, taking my time setting up my pads. I don’t like to be rushed before a game.
Then I plug into my iPod and turn on a playlist that I call Tunnel Vision. It’s got rock, rap, everything from Jay-Z to Led Zeppelin, The Doors to Metallica. I also listen to songs from “Last of the Mohicans” and “Gladiators” that get me pumped up.
For a 1 p.m. game we’re on the field at 12:10 for about 25-30 minutes, then come back in, meet with our offensive coordinator. There’s a team prayer and Coach Coughlin says a few words and we’re ready to go out there.
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| OL Leads Giants to 2-0 |
By playerpress.com wire service
Sept. 16, 2008 |
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Eli Manning is the quarterback, the Super Bowl MVP, the guy who grabs most of the headlines.
Plaxico Burress is the larger-than-life wide receiver, the guys who brings the crowd to its feet with big plays downfield.
And the Giants’ talented trio of running backs has its very own catchy nickname: Earth, Wind and Fire, to celebrate the accomplishments of Brandon Jacobs, Derrick Ward and Ahmad Bradshaw.
But which unit on the Super Bowl champs is responsible for Eli’s lengthy stays, untouched, in the pocket, giving Burress the time to make double moves deep in enemy territory, and ripping huge holes in the line that let the running backs motor into the secondary?
That would be the Giants’ underrated, uber-talented offensive line, which will, after years of flying under the radar, be in line for some long-awaited accolades once this season ends.
Left tackle Dave Diehl, left guard Rich Seubert, center Shaun O’Hara, right guard Chris Snee and right tackle Kareem McKenzie have received none of the praise reserved for the team’s stars during the Giants’ 2-0 start following their Super Bowl triumph.
And they don’t seem to care.
“All we do is whatever we can to become one of the best offensive line groups in the NFL,” says Diehl, a sixth-year starter who has not missed a game since being drafted in the fifth round out of Illinois in 2003. “We’re not caught up in what the media says about us, we just go out there and prove what we can do with our numbers, not giving up sacks, being penalty-free.
“We focus on that, not what people say about us. And we know that any successful team must have a good offensive line.”
The numbers through Week 2 bear that out. The Giants have allowed only four sacks for 35 yards and the team has accumulated 44 first downs, 20 rushing and 24 passing, while dominating time of possession in victories over the Redskins and Rams.
Manning has had enough time in the pocket to build a castle out of artificial turf, completing a combined 39 of 64 passes for 476 yards.
The Giants also have accumulated 354 rushing yards, but it is the measly four sacks that rankle Diehl, who along with Snee, is expected to receive Pro Bowl consideration after dominating in 2007.
“You definitely take it personally when your guy gets a sack,” says Diehl. “That’s part of being an offensive lineman, you never want to have your guy make a play or disrupt things for your offense. As an offensive player and an athlete, I take a lot of pride in myself and the way I prepare for the games.
“Not only is Eli my quarterback, he’s also one of my closest friends on the team. I want to do everything I can on every play to make sure he can be successful and never gets hit.”
And while Diehl is happy that the Giants are 2-0 and the line has held up its end of the bargain, he knows the team can do even better.
“Right now we’re happy, but in no way are we going to be complacent,” he says. “We want to give up no sacks in a game. As a competitor and an offensive lineman, you do whatever you can to make that happen.”
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| DD Misses First Practice |
By playerpress.com wire service
Aug. 11, 2008 |
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Dave Diehl, one of the NFL's ironmen, missed his first practice on Sunday.
Not his first practice of the season. The first of his career.
Diehl, the Giants' starting left tackle, has played in every regular season and playoff game, 86 total, since he was drafted in the fifth round out of Illinois in 2003. But Sunday night, Diehl looked on at training camp at the University of Albany (N.Y.) with bruised ribs.
“I hate missing practice,” Diehl said. “I have never missed practice. It is frustrating. It was awkward for me, very awkward.”
Diehl missed one play in Dallas in 2004 when he sustained a cut above his eye after being poked. He also missed a series in a playoff win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in January because of dehydration. He said he did not recall missing a practice in four years of college or high school.
Third-year pro Guy Whimper filled in at left tackle while Diehl watched and offered advice as Whimper went up against Pro Bowl defensive end Osi Umenyiora.
Diehl doesn’t know how his ribs were bruised. He said the team was being cautious by holding him out in the second practice on Sunday.
Diehl has been the Giants most versatile lineman. He started at right guard in 2003 and right tackle in '04. He started mostly at left guard in 2005 and ‘06 before moving to left tackle last season.
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| We’re Still Underdogs |
Written by Todd Schmerler, Player Press
Thursday, 31 July 2008 |
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It's been just one year since Dave Diehl took over as the starting left tackle for the Giants, but reports out of the team's training camp in Albany, N.Y., reveal that he's come a long way in that short time.
Diehl, a sixth-year starter out of Illinois, went up against All-World defensive end Osi Umenyiora in practice today and showed just how far he's come. Umenyiora, a Pro Bowler after racking up 12 sacks last year, tried all his best moves to get around Diehl, but Diehl would not be flustered.
Diehl stayed low and absorbed Umenyiora's best shots, keeping him at bay the entire time.
The display by Diehl caused several in attendance to recall how Umenyiora had beaten Diehl regularly at last year's training camp and had Giants management doubting their decision to try Diehl at the critical left tackle spot. |
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New York Giants Wire