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.