NFC Notes: Sterling Shepard, Desmond Ridder, Giants, Falcons, Panthers

Giants

Giants HC Brian Daboll anticipates WR Sterling Shepard‘s role growing within the offense as they continue to re-integrate him after he suffered a torn ACL last season.

“We have a bunch of personnel groups with different receivers in them,” Daboll said, via Giants Wire. “You can see there is a lot of different guys out there. Shep has them, too. They weren’t called, so I’d anticipate seeing him a little bit more. How many? I don’t know what that is, but I’d anticipate seeing him a little bit more. I think Shep is a good player,” continued Daboll. “He will be out there today. We’ll put him in there like we do in practice. We just didn’t call the plays that were tagged with Shep’s plays, but he’s had some production with Daniel. Obviously, it’s a new year, coming back from an injury, so try to keep bringing him along and give him a couple more chances here.”

Falcons

Falcons QB Desmond Ridder said he’s focused on continuous improvement and isn’t allowing the outside noise to affect him.

“For me, I don’t let the outside noise kind of affect me,” Ridder said, via PFT. “I just know what I have to do every single day and that’s to improve. We talk a lot about here of the growth mindset, and for myself that’s coming in watching the film — like I said, I had eight hours to watch it on the plane, watched it twice over there, so it’s just about coming in here and getting better every single day. Not only myself but every other guy on this team getting better, so we can improve as a team.”

Ridder isn’t concerned with being benched and said he refuses to play in fear of losing his job.

“That’s playing in fear and that’s not something I want to do or would advise anyone to do is to play in fear, or to play like someone’s looking over your back,” Ridder said. “For me, it’s just about going out there and playing every play as a new play and going out there trying to play the play as best as you can, try to get the best result out of each play, and not play with that fear. When you start to play with that fear you start to second guess things. When you get into that game of oh, is he going to bench me? Oh, is he going to do this? That’s when you start to get into a lot of crappy play and a lot of fear.”

Panthers

Panthers OC Thomas Brown elaborated on the team’s lack of offensive production from the tight end position, adding that they’re asking the position to do more than just catch passes.

“Well, I think one thing when you talk about the tight end group is when you understand the position,” Brown said, via Panthers Wire. “And having had a chance to coach that before I came here in L.A.—that’s a spot that kinda has a lot of involvement with the offense. I think when you talk about overall success, it’s not just about touches and catches. What they do in the run game and protection game is a big part of overall success.”

• Panthers DC Ejiro Evero praised DE Yetur-Gross Matos for his commitment to improving and playing multiple roles: “I’ve seen a great commitment from the young man since Day 1,” via Darin Gannt.