New York Giants head coach Joe Judge held his first video conference of training camp on Friday and to suggest he had a lot to say would be an understatement.
Judge touched on a little bit of everything during his 30-minute meeting with reporters and while much of it felt repetitive, there was still a lot of information to absorb.
Here’s a look at eight different things we learned.
Sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice
The COVID-19 pandemic has essentially changed the way we live and for those in professional sports, things are even more challenging.
Judge isn’t interested in excuses however, but he is interested in personal responsibility and expects each of this players to make sacrifices in order to ensure the health and well-being of the entire team.
“The first thing we have to all understand is, everyone at this level has sacrificed to get here. We’re going to have to make some more sacrifices, whether that’s socially away from the game, how we interact with friends and family members throughout this season,” Judge said. “But we have to make the right decisions. The biggest thing is everyone has to understand that all of our decisions directly impact each other.
“It’s not fair for me to go out and do something and put myself at risk and come in here and get players sick. That’s not my right. I’m not entitled to do that. We have to all make the right decisions, both in the building following the protocols and away from the building.”
In the end, Judge believes these safety precautions are a fair trade-off for playing in the NFL.
“There are some sacrifices we have to make. Like I said earlier, everybody has had to make sacrifices to get to this level. If the biggest thing we have to do is for half a year wear masks around each other, distance a little bit and when we go home, be home, I think it’s a pretty fair trade off to be a part of the National Football League,” Judge said.
There will be succession plans
In the event someone on the team comes down with COVID-19 or even he, himself, ends up sick, Judge says there will be multiple succession plans in place.
“We have succession plans for the coaching staff. Once we get a depth chart in place at the end of the roster development, we’ll have plans for every player on the team, who the next man up would be,” Judge said. “My plan as the head coach as we go through training camp is not only evaluating players, but also evaluating the coaches in terms of interaction. It has to be the total chemistry of how a game day would operate.
“There will be decisions that we’ll make at the end in terms of going through the season. Those decisions may change as we go through the entirety of the season. But we’ll structure practices accordingly. We’re always in for developing every player, we’re in for developing every coach as well. We started talking back in the spring in terms of if any one coach, myself included, couldn’t come to work that day for any period of time, how would we address meetings, practice on the field, the game. We have to make sure we have a plan.”
DeAndre Baker is on his own
When asked about cornerback DeAndre Baker and his legal situation, Judge answered quickly and firmly. Essentially, Baker is on his own.
“He’s not on our 90-man roster. Currently, he’s on the exempt list, so I’ll let the league deal with that issue. I’m not going to comment on any ongoing legal investigation,” Judge said.
Judge also refused to discuss linebacker Markus Golden, who is not yet officially under contract.
“In terms of Markus or any other player, there’s an entry process that everyone has to go through. The testing, the quarantining, then the physicals. Once these players clear that process, I’ll be happy to talk about all of them. To this moment, that’s one player who has not cleared the process,” Judge said.
Full support of Nate Solder
As a man of faith, it took offensive lineman Nate Solder a lot of time and a lot of prayer to reach a final decision on his opt-out. And while Judge admits he wanted him to play in 2020, the coach says he and the organization “fully support” Solder’s decision to protect his family.
“We fully support Nate Solder’s decision,” Judge said. “I’ve known him personally going back to my time in New England. Not only have I known him, but I’ve had a relationship with him and his family. His wife Lexi is a great woman. Their children and what they are going through personally, this was not an easy decision. I don’t want to talk for Nate, he has put out his own words. From an organizational standpoint, we wanted Nate to play this year, but we fully support his decision not to because we absolutely understand what he is going through.
“This was not an easy decision for him, we talked about it a lot. At the end of the day, I am not going to try to talk a player into doing anything when it comes to the situation we are in right now. You have to make the decision personally that’s best for you and your family. I think Nate did that and we fully support him.”
Defense will be ‘multiple’
We’ve heard defensive coordinator Patrick Graham say it before and now Judge has confirmed it: the Giants defense will be “multiple” in 2020.
“Our defense is going to be multiple both by base scheme and based on game plan and who the opponent is. You are going to see four to six DB’s on the field in certain times,” Judge said.
As part of that “multiple” defense, rookie safety Xavier McKinney is expected to play a large role.
“Versatility is huge part of our systems, offense, defense and the kicking game,” Judge said. “His role will be different based on different game plans. He’ll have a chance, like all are other players will, to establish what he is going to be in our defense based on how he performs in this next month of football.”
All players will cross-train
The Giants will leave nothing up to chance under Judge in his first year, which means players up and down the roster will cross-train.
For offensive linemen, that means learning every position from left to right.
“Everyone has to contribute and everyone has to play. One thing you hear a lot about and people get caught up in the word ‘starter.’ You can only bring so many to an active gameday list, everybody plays. It’s not really significant who the first 11 on the field are,” Judge said. “At the end of the game, everybody has a role, everybody has a very important job and everyone has to contribute.
“We are going to play all of our offensive linemen at multiple positions right and left. We are going to have a competition for every position. We are going to have multiple guys playing inside at center and outside at tackle. We are going to play all of our tackles at right and left to start camp and see who fits best where. Once we establish who should be on either side, we will go forward.
“That being said, we want to cross-train all of our players. You can’t just play right tackle or left tackle, or right corner or left corner. Based on depth and health of the team, it may require you in the middle or an entire game to play on a side you don’t normally play on. All our guys are working to switch sides and mirror their technique and play effective for a game.”
College training camp?
With no preseason games on the schedule this year, Judge says training camp with have a more college feel to it.
On the positive side, it allows the team to focus more heavily on the installs. On the negative side, it will take more effort to get players up to game speed.
“This is almost more like a college training camp because you are not worried about getting ready for a preseason game. You are not concerned about having a plan in place for a specific opponent. You really have more time to work on your own installs and what you can address within your own team at your own progression,” Judge said.
“It’s not ramping it up to say here’s the green light, let’s step on the gas. You have to get the players’ bodies ready for competition. Each part of the season gets faster. Preseason is not as fast as the regular season, regular season is not as fast as the playoffs. Every round you go in the playoffs, it gets faster and more intense, that’s just the truth. Not that the players aren’t putting in max effort, it’s just the reality of the situation of how the teams get better as you go, the reaction you have to have and the intensity of the game.”
Giants will not isolate their quarterbacks
Some teams around the NFL are instituting specific policies in an effort to keep their quarterbacks healthy. The Giants will not be one of those teams.
“We are trying to keep all the players spaced out physically. In terms of just quarantining any one player at this moment, we want to have every player around here so we can have an interpersonal connection with them, get them on the field and train them,” Judge said.
“I think we are doing everything we possibly can to keep our guys extra safe to be honest with you. Our guys know to go back to the hotel, they are in their room. We keep them late enough here anyway. They don’t have a ton of time once they leave the building. Normally they get back, they read their notebook and then their head hits the pillow and they’re out and they start the day over again.
“We can’t make this the biggest obstacle. We are going to have 16 games of opponents that are going to be a lot tougher than just following protocols. We have to get ready right now and follow all the little details and get ready for the season.”
