New York Giants head coach Joe Judge revealed to reporters on Wednesday that beginning next Friday, August 21, the team would begin holding intrasquad scrimmages once per week to ready the players for competitive football in mid-September.
“We’re basically going to have an intrasquad scrimmage of some type every week of training camp. The first one will be on this next Friday coming up,” Judge said. “Look, for everyone kind of familiar with football, that will look a whole lot like every high school and college scrimmage in America. Offense on one sideline, defense on the other. We’ll create situations on the field and let them play live football all the way through.”
With no preseason this year, these intrasquad scrimmages have the potential to be exceptionally valuable for Judge and the Giants.
Here’s a look at four of those benefits.
Get players up to speed
You hear it all the time — professional football is a fast game. That’s why random players off the street can rarely just step in and excel.
The speed of the game also gives way to injuries if players aren’t prepared, so it’s key for the Giants to have their feet under them by the time Week 1 rolls around.
“We have to get an opportunity to let our guys play at full speed. Let them go out there and experience the game and demonstrate they can operate when coaches aren’t yelling in their ears and trying to make corrections. We just have to get them out there and let them play,” Judge said.
These intrasquad games will prepare the Giants to play four full quarters at maximum speed, while their bodies have adjusted to the physicality.
Scrimmage privacy
Because of the unique nature of this offseason, the Giants will be able to hold these scrimmages without prying eyes looking down on them.
There will be no fans in attendance, no media members in attendance, no news cameras, no cellphone cameras and no potential moles trying to steal information.
The only onlookers will be players, coaches and staff not participating on the field and the team’s own videographers. That’s it. There will be no risk in tipping their hand or having something leak they would otherwise like to remain in-house.
Coaching staff control
Unlike normal preseason games, where the control of tempo and script is lost through the course of competition, these intrasquad scrimmages will allow Joe Judge and his staff to control everything.
While the scrimmages will pit the offense against the defense in a competitive format, Judge and his coordinators will be able to create situations and scenarios and run them to perfection.
If the players make a mistake it’s not just sent into the void. Rather, the issue can be ironed out through repeating cycles. After all, practice makes perfect as they say.
Perhaps more than anything else, this will likely become the most valuable tool for Judge & Co. during these scrimmages.
Hiding potential talent
This may not benefit the players, but it will benefit the team.
With no preseason games, players further down the depth chart aren’t going to be able to compile any film, meaning whatever team they currently call home is likely their best opportunity to make an NFL roster.
For the Giants, who are in desperate need of all the talent they can possibly compile, it means any young player who excels can potentially be horded and stashed away on their practice squad with anyone on the outside being none the wiser.
This is not entirely foolproof, but it does give the Giants a better opportunity to not only evaluate each player on their roster, but potentially stash away those they’d prefer not to lose.
