New York Giants head coach Joe Judge says QB Daniel Jones was a little too forthcoming about his injury and limitations.
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While meeting with reporters earlier this week, New York Giants quarterback Daniel Jones acknowledged his limitations, essentially admitting he’s been relegated to pocket passing as a result of his lingering hamstring injury.
“I feel good, I feel healthy,” Jones said. “But I think you can tell from the tape that I’m not… I can’t do a lot of the same things I’m used to doing. I’ll continue to work and work to improve. But for the time being, I’ll probably have to adjust the way I play. I’ve been doing that the last few weeks.”
The comments immediately resulted in questions about whether or not Jones was lying. Some even implied he was making excuses in case he plays poorly in Week 17 against the Dallas Cowboys.
Precious few left the door open to Jones simply being honest. Perhaps a bit too honest.
That leap to conclusions and judgements fell flat, however.
On Thursday, head coach Joe Judge expressed his frustrations with Jones for oversharing in regards to his injury status, which is something the first-year head coach doesn’t want his players doing.
“Look, I read Daniel’s comments yesterday. Probably a little more forthcoming than I would have been with it right there,” Judge said sharply. “But as I said yesterday, we’ll do whatever it takes to win the game. But again, I can’t stress it enough, I’m going to always put the players’ health in consideration on how we call the game. I can’t turn around, as you said yesterday, and ‘take the gloves off.’ Well, the gloves come off and you expose someone to long-term injury, that’s not always the most opportune thing. We’re going to make sure that we always put our players in a position of strength, and that includes their health.”
Jones hasn’t had many slip-ups in the eyes of Judge this season, but that was certainly one.
What’s more interesting is the leap so many made when Jones was simply being honest. The target on his back appears bigger than ever and most seem determined to settle on a worst-case scenario whenever it comes to the second-year quarterback. That’s a very dishonest and manipulative approach.
Anyone who watched Jones play in Week 16 could tell he was hampered and there’s no reason to believe that would have magically changed in the 72 hours between the Ravens game and Jones’ comments.
Jones should not have tipped his hand in the way he did, but he certainly wasn’t being intentionally misleading or dishonest, and he wasn’t making excuses, either.
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