There is a lot we don’t know about Joe Judge that we can’t know until the moment comes.
Fourth and 3 from his own 47-yard line, down three halfway through the fourth quarter. What does the judge do? Cut it off or tell Daniel Jones to take it down first? Will the judge play the percentages or roll the dice?
A sudden loss. Does the judge blow his stack or roll with it?
A two-game winning streak (imagine that!), Can Judge keep a sense of contentment from filling the socially distant locker room?
No one can say for sure, right now that the job, in its entirety, is not too big for Joe Judge. His record of losses won is not yet activated and it’s the picture that counts. What we can say, already, less than a week after the start of the game of his first training camp with the Giants, is that THAT part of the work is not too big for Joe Judge.
There are those in the building who feel lucky that the judge was hired at that point, feeling lucky he is the person responsible for guiding the giants through an unprecedented concoction of triggered angst and uncertainty. by COVID-19.
He is young (38) and has never been this way before, so not frozen in his ways. His demanding insistence on maximizing every minute on the pitch is what is needed now, with restrictive “ramp-up” speed bumps installed by the league and the players’ union.
To those wondering why Judge is the way he is, weren’t they paying attention to his resume? Working three years for Nick Saban and the last eight years for Bill Belichick either fortifies an impressionable coach or allows him to get rid of the company. It’s ridiculous to deduce that Judge is a Belichick clone and to use a few penalty rounds and a live tackle drill as proof.
About those penalty rounds. There were five in the first three days of practice – six if you count the two rookies, linebacker Cam Brown was sent off. So, it’s not like every misstep turns the judge on. And by “running” we are nice. Sometimes Brown seemed to be putting his feet up. So please save the uproar that this is some form of brutal physical expense.
Emmanuel Acho, the former Eagles linebacker who made a name for himself in the broadcast world, is the latest to call Judge offline. “Dumb” and “practical fools” were his buzzwords – by far, of course – for Judge’s coaching style. Tricks for mistakes, Acho said, are “tactics to use on children.”
Are these the internal thoughts of the Giants players on the field with Judge? Is a revolt brewing? On the subject of the uprisings, there were veterans – guys who ended up as important starters for one or two Super Bowl teams – in secret rebellion when Tom Coughlin arrived in 2004 and started with his contract as Drill Sergeant. Some of these veterans actually denounced Coughlin to the NFL Players Association for going too far in organized team activities.
Was there outrage when Brian Flores – another former Belichick assistant – forced the Dolphins last season to throw a “talentless wall” every time a mistake was made at training camp? It actually carried over to the regular season, when Flores’ side – expected to win only a game or two – have won five of their last nine games and finished 29th in the league on penalties.
The Giants have more losses (36) than any team in the NFL over the past three seasons. It’s a young group. Sometimes it seems like wide receiver Sterling Shepard has just arrived and yet he’s the longest-serving Giants player. There is no Giants Way yet, not until Judge has completed the installation process.
As severe as it sounds.
“They understand it’s about the message, not how the message is always delivered,” Judge said. “We train hard. We are very demanding. This is a difficult work. We are in New York. It’s a tough place to play and train. We have to have guys with thick skin who understand that we have to operate in high pressure situations. We can’t go to the training ground and just sing ‘Kumbaya’ together and think we’re going to move on. ”
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Live exercises? No hindsight now, not without a single preseason game to get some hits.
“Look,” he said, “we can’t prepare the guys to drive on I-95 on back roads. If we think the Pittsburgh Steelers [in the season opener] come here to hug us, we are all wrong unfortunately. ”
So, for now, a little more aggression than hugging. If the giants can’t handle this now, what can they handle later?
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