New York Giants head coach Joe Judge confirmed on Thursday that his team will conduct joint practices with the Cleveland Browns and New England Patriots during training camp.
Judge said the two joint practices with the Browns are all but finalized, while minor details on joint practices with the Patriots are still being ironed out.
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“I’m a big fan of (joint practices),” Judge told reporters. “I think it’s a great time to get your team in training camp to kind of break the monotony, get some competition against friendly opponent in both programs, the Browns and the Patriots.
“I’ve got great relationships with both coaches, known them both for a sustained period of time.”
The two joint practices against the Browns will be held in Cleveland but when it comes to the Patriots, things are a little more wonky.
Currently, the plan is to conduct those joint practices in Foxborough despite the fact that the Giants-Patriots Week 3 preseason game will be played in East Rutherford at MetLife Stadium.
Ultimately, for Judge and the Giants, it’s all about providing the players with every opportunity to improve and prepare themselves for live action in the regular-season.
“I think one of the things you try to find in this is not only the teams that are obviously schematically going to help you some of the things that you’re going to see throughout the season, but most importantly, you want to make sure you go out there and you have a good quality practice,” Judge added.
“It helps you get exposure to different schemes that you may not see from your own team outside of having to draw cards or on scout teams. It’s actually a way to really take something off your players at a certain time.
“You kind of ramp them up and build it the first few weeks of training camp. And then when you go ahead and you do a practice with another team, you got to figure it’s no longer the offense is always going to defense — what’s going on is our offense is on the field and our defense is on the sideline, making adjustments, resting, talking to coaches, and then vice versa. So it actually breaks it up a little bit for them.”
These aren’t likely to be one-and-done joint practices, either. Judge indicated that the Giants and Patriots are likely to make joint practices an annual tradition with rotating locations.
“That’s the plan right now,” Judge said. “With the change in the pre-season schedule, both organizations thought it’d be a good idea to be able to exchange a little bit year by year.”
So far, there’s been no word about potential joint practices between the Giants and New York Jets, but don’t be so quick to rule them out. Logistically, they would be much easier to conduct for both teams given that they share a stadium.