Bill Parcells is giving rookie guards Randy Thomas and David Loverne a golden opportunity to crack the starting lineup. Thomas, the No. 2 draft, lined up at RG with the starters yesterday. Loverne, the No. 3 draft, lined up at LG with the starters. They will alternate on a daily basis with LG Doug Karczewski and RG Alex Bernstein.
“We’re just gonna, and this is happening with several positions, not just on offense, we’re just gonna rotate people up and back just to give everybody an opportunity and also to give the adjacent players experience with them,” Parcells said. “Some of these kids might be starters. So I need to start letting them play with [RT Jason] Fabini and [LT Jumbo] Elliott, which I’ll do.”
Parcells was asked how much time he will let the guard situation play itself out before making a decision.
“Not very long,” he said. “This is not like you got incumbent veterans and rookies. All of these guys are young. So I’ve gotta get the ones I think are gonna be the guys. I’ve gotta get ’em in there pretty quick, so I’m not gonna take too long. Maybe a week, maybe 10 days, I don’t know, maybe one preseason game, but I’m gonna have at least a month to go before the first regular-season game.” *Free-agent rookie LB Olrick Johnson caused a stir yesterday morning when he tried to strip the ball from a scrambling Vinny Testaverde and saw the quarterback throw the ball at him and then push him.
Johnson, who growing up in Miami remembers getting Testaverde’s autograph at Miami (Fla.), wrapped the QB up at the end of an aborted flea-flicker.
“Actually, it wasn’t a hard hit, but I touched him, and Vinny doesn’t want his hands messed with, we don’t want that, and like I said, I was just going through with something I usually do with every other player, but the quarterbacks we just shouldn’t touch, and that’s something I guess I forgot on the field in the heat of the moment,” Johnson said. *Testaverde on the sluggish morning offense: “If it was a game, we’d probably be three-and-out five or six times in a row that we had the ball there.”
Parcells with so upset with the raggedness of the practice that he had the team run an extra lap when it ended.
