After months of uncertainty, head coach Joe Judge will get an in-person look at his New York Giants for the very first time next week when the remaining players officially report for training camp.
Despite the lack of an offseason and how far behind it has put Judge as a first-year coach, he’s not interested in making any excuses and doesn’t expect his players to, either.
“Everybody in New York has had to deal with the challenges through this pandemic. We’re dealing with many of the same obstacles. But like everybody in New York, there’s no excuses that are gonna be accepted. We’re going out there, and we’re looking to put a product on the field that they’ll be proud of,” Judge told Steve Serby of the New York Post.
Rather, led by quarterback Daniel Jones and running back Saquon Barkley, Judge anticipates the entire team will hit the ground running.
“I have every bit of confidence possible right now in all of our players,” Judge said. “I think Daniel’s done everything to this point that he can do as well as he can. He’s anxious to get on the grass, we’re anxious to get on the grass with him as well. And I know he’s a competitor, so I’m excited to get him out there.
“He had a really good spring. It’s tough evaluating somebody when you haven’t been on the field with him, but he came to work every day with a full head of steam, he was very urgent, and you can tell he loves football. … That’s important. He’s had some leadership qualities that have shown up this spring in the way he’s conducted himself, in the way he kind of organized some things on his own away from what we’re doing as a team within the virtual meetings. He’s a guy who has very good insightful questions, and he’s not afraid to really ask the tough question and speak his mind when it’s me and him one-on-one, and that’s important, ’cause he gives you good honest feedback.”
Judge has been equally as impressed with Barkley, who has been all about the team this offseason.
“I’ve been very pleased at how he’s come to work. He’s definitely had a very team-first attitude. That room as a whole, I think they’ve really taken on [running backs coach] Burton Burns’ personality. There’s a lot of sincere care for one another. They compete, but they work together. I think it’s a group that has varied personalities, but similar dispositions at the same time. These guys are serious about what they do, but they have fun playing football,” Judge said.
But Jones and Barkley aren’t the only players who have caught the attention of Judge, who also had some praise for Leonard Williams and Lorenzo Carter.
“I’ve watched tapes from afar. … I will say I’m very encouraged with the way they’ve worked, and I’m very excited about getting them on the field and going to work with them. That’s definitely come out of the spring, I’m very encouraged, I’m very pleased, very excited. We’ll let training camp decide really the roster and the depth chart,” Judge said.
“Zo’s a guy, he’s got a big personality, he’s always smiling, but he’s serious about his work. He’s fun to be around. He knows how to light up a room pretty quickly with just smiling, maybe sharing a joke here or there. I’m excited about working with Zo, he’s a high-energy guy. I remember when he was coming out of Georgia, I remember playing against him last year. Now I’m excited to have him on our team.
“I think Leonard’s a guy who has a great skill set to work with. He’s very attentive, he’s very urgent to the meetings we had this spring.”
In the end, Judge wants to see the entire team develop the same personality on the field.
“We’re gonna be a smart, tough, fundamentally sound football team. We want to be a team that can adjust game by game, week by week. Go ahead and have the best game plan possible. And we’re gonna be a physical team,” Judge said. “We’re gonna have some versatility with our schemes, make sure that we cater to the strengths of our players on what they do well, and then look to put them in those positions, then they can play to their strengths. And we expect them to go ahead and be a smart team that can adjust on the fly and be able to change in a game plan from week to week, and understand how to use their specific skill sets in different ways based on how we have to match or create mismatches on opponents.”
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