GIANT NOTES

The Giants mercifully ended the Owen Pochman punting era yesterday when they signed Gabe Lindstrom to handle the duties for Monday night’s game in Minnesota.

Pochman, a rookie placekicker who had not punted since high school, averaged 29.2 yards on his five punts in Sunday’s 17-10 victory over the Cardinals.

He did put three of the punts down inside the 20-yard line, but he clearly was not an NFL-caliber punter. Realizing this, the Giants added Lindstrom, one of four punters they tried out last week.

It is not as if Lindstrom is loaded with experience, but at least he makes his living as punter. He was in training camp this past summer with the Browns and previously had been in camp with the Cowboys.

In college, he averaged 41 yards per punt in 1998 for Toledo.

To make room for Lindstrom on the roster, the Giants cut linebacker Kole Ayi. They would have made this move last week and avoided the Pochman experiment altogether, but adding Lindstrom last week would have cut into their already-thin salary-cap reserve more than it did this week.

This could be only a one-week stay for Lindstrom, as Jim Fassel said yesterday there’s a chance the regular punter, Rodney Williams, will be ready to return for the Nov. 25 game against the Raiders. Williams is out with a fractured right wrist.

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Giants will open up the NFL preseason Aug. 5 by facing the Houston Texans in the Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio. This is the first time the Giants will play in Canton since 1985, that time vs. the Houston Oilers . . . Rookie DE Cedric Scott (broken right hand) will miss 1-2 weeks.

Fassel said he was most disappointed by the Giants’ inability to score on third-and-1 from the Cardinals’ 1. He did not blame Ron Dayne for getting stopped for no gain.

“We got beat a couple of times at the point of attack,” Fassel said. “There were too many white helmets sticking through the hole.”