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Earlier this week, New York Giants head coach Joe Judge caused a stir when he acknowledged giving consideration to letting second-year quarterback Daniel Jones take live hits in practice.
“We’ve talked about it. With quarterbacks, you want to go ahead and be calculated with how you start banging them around,” Judge told reporters. “I don’t think we’re going to throw him into any Royal Rumbles or anything like that. But at some point, we’ll pop his pads a little bit in a controlled environment.
“Maybe that’s with a young guy who understands kind of hitting him a little bit. But I’m not in a hurry to go ahead and just beat the hell out of him. But at some point, we’ll prepare his body for what he may take in the first game.”
Pressed on potentially removing Jones’ non-contact jersey following Wednesday’s practice, Judge responded with impressive sarcasm.
“I have the strength staff downstairs right now putting bars of soap in socks and we’re just going to take him out back and just wail on him for a while,” Judge said with a laugh.
After getting his jab in, Judge elaborated on the team’s plan for Jones.
“It’s our responsibility to get every player ready to play. With a quarterback, you have to be smart about the contact. Will we put him into a live tackling drill? No. Is it something we’re going to bang around a little bit with a pad, calculated time and pads and make sure his body at least feels some pressure on it? Yes. Is there a time you’re going to kind of bear hug him a little bit, let him feel the grabs? Yeah, these are things you naturally have to do to get a player’s body ready,” Judge said.
“Remember this, it’s not just the physical conditioning. It’s as important for the players to be contacted and be tackled to prepare for the game. You can’t get yourself ready mentally to be hit full speed. Your body has to learn how to absorb that hit. It has to learn how to adjust accordingly. You have to learn the feeling you get of going to the ground. That’s just something natural.”
Judge says this theory applies to all players, including the team’s other quarterbacks.
“Now, we’re not going to be foolish with what we do with any of our quarterbacks. We’re not going to make them live in practice, but we may set up a drill here or there to let them feel a little bit of the stress they’re going to feel within the pocket. But making sure we do it at the right tempo that they’re not going to be at risk of injury,” Judge said.
The clarity may not be enough to satisfy some, but it makes sense from a football standpoint. And it’s more proof that Judge is supremely details and ensures that his team is prepared for literally everything.
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