There is a monumental disconnect between the perception of New York Giants head coach Joe Judge in East Rutherford and outside of it.
For those local to the team, Judge’s method makes sense. His players have clearly bought in, the locker-room is in lock-step with their head coach, there’s a good relationship with the media and a growing relationship with the fans.
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On the national stage and among those who have never spent a single moment with or around Judge (or his team), the opinions are wildly different.
After having four players retire over the first two weeks of training camp, Judge and his disciplined, old school approach have become somewhat of a lightning rod. The notion that he’s running things “The Patriots Way” as opposed to “The Judge Way” have taken off and there’s no convincing people they’ve got it wrong.
Such was the case on Friday night when several retired NFL players, including ex-Giant Geoff Schwartz, took aim at Judge for his “brutal” approach to discipline and training.
“Joe Looney gets signed [and] in his first two practices he’s got to run a lap for a mistake and then run sprints and pushups to end practice for a fight. Brutal,” Scwartz tweeted.
Retired offensive lineman Jeff Allen and and retired defensive end Michael DeVito also believe that Judge’s methods are “toxic.”
“The New England way outside of New England is toxic,” Allen tweeted.
“It’s really so true,” DeVito replied in agreement.
Shaun Smith, who spent 10 seasons in the NFL and appeared in over 100 games, took things a step further and ripped Judge for having an “ego.”
“He thinks he is [running] a college program or he thinks he is Bill Parcells,” Smith tweeted. “Joe Judge hasn’t won [expletive]. He’s too worried about his hair and ego — they are the new Pats.”
Judge, who has won two BCS National Championships with Alabama and three Super Bowl titles with the New England Patriots, has never once concerned himself with his hair. He has also never come across as someone with an ego — quite the opposite, in fact.
But the Giants and their fans wouldn’t be upset if they became “the new Pats.” After a decade of losing, turning into one of the most legendary and successful franchises in sports history would be more than welcomed.
Ignoring that reality, Schwartz and DeVito continued speaking for Joe Looney and Zach Fulton, who each opted to retire this week.
“And you know brother, the older you get, the more that stuff wears your body down,” DeVito tweeted.
“We are also adults. Running for someone else making a mistake doesn’t teach accountability,” Schwartz tweeted in reply.
Perhaps one of them should have reached out to Looney for his honest opinion because it doesn’t match the words they attempted to put into his mouth.
“That’s something I ain’t done since little league, but you know I loved it. It’s another way to hold us accountable as professionals,” Looney said prior to his retirement. “If you make a mistake, you’re going to have to run a lap for it. You know, I’m all about it. It holds us accountable at the end of the day.”
Looney ultimately decided that after eight months away from the game, his body simply couldn’t take the rigors of training camp and then an 17-game season. That was also the case for Fulton, who was unable to crack the second team in practice.
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“I would say that a lot of these older vets, they’re at a different point in their life with different things,” Judge told reporters on Friday. “Zach’s a guy that started a business in the offseason, he just had his son. His family is down in Texas. This is an opportunity for him to get back. We talked a lot about just the duration, a career and different things. Without going into everything, look, he indicated to us, hey listen, coming out of where he was last year, your body’s in a different point than when you’re younger. You get to the point to see do I think I have it for [17] games? And you have to respect when these guys look us in the eye and say, ‘listen, I really wanted to see if I could push through it, but I don’t think my body’s at that point,’ and you can leave this point in the game with your health.
“In terms of dealing with vets that make decisions like this, the biggest thing is that you have to understand, you’ve got to respect them as a person first, okay. As you look at your roster, sometimes you don’t want to see any of those players walk out. When we sit down and have an honest conversation, you don’t really talk much about football. You talk about family. You talk about their experience in the league. You talk about what they want to do long-term in their life. You talk about a lot of different things.
“I appreciate everything they’ve done for the team. They all worked hard for us. I don’t want to see any one of them go. We left the door open for all three based on circumstances that if something were to happen, they can return if we have room for them. I’d welcome all three [Looney, Fulton and Todd Davis] of them back, I really would. These are guys we brought in our program because we think they would help the team. They’re three good dudes. I tell you that right now, all three of them are good dudes.”
Veteran linebacker Todd Davis, who also opted to retire after a brief camp stint with the Giants, had nothing but good things to say about Judge & Co.
“The Giants, I was only there a little bit of time, and I think I had a shot at doing everything I wanted to do there,” Davis said. “It was just everything combined. It was great there. I feel like they have a great coaching staff. There’s a lot of coaches there who care about their players doing well, so I expect them to do well.”
In fact, the only retiree or player who has been critical of Judge was Benjamin, who reported to camp nearly 20 pounds overweight and opted to quit instead of accepting a fine.
If anyone wants a clearer picture of Judge and what it’s like playing for him, just ask his players.
“It ain’t for everybody. You feel me? He’s entitled to his opinion,” cornerback James Bradberry said, via the New York Daily News. “I definitely think coach Judge is tough. But football is tough. There’s a lot of pressure being in our shoes, so I don’t expect him to give us our way all the time. A tough coach, that’s how you build structure. That’s how you build discipline. That’s what he’s building here. It’s part of our culture. It ain’t for everybody, man.”
“You know, the biggest thing I appreciate about Joe is how he always kept the picture going forward. We started off really rough last year, and each week you couldn’t tell it from him and his expectations and his energy towards that. He could see it in our eyes as well. Just his energy, his standard and the way he holds his standard up for himself and the way he holds us to the standard that he’s created for this program, I respect it a lot. You know, you can strap up your helmet and go to war for a coach like that. We’re excited to go into year two with him and get another camp down,” tight end Evan Engram said.
“No, not at all, wide receiver Sterling Shepard said when asked if players hate Judge’s methods. “That’s kind of the standard that we’ve set here in this building and as a team, and I think guys have bought in and know what to expect whenever you step on the field and when you’re playing under a guy like Coach Judge. If you don’t like it, then you’re welcome to leave. But that’s the way that we do things around here and everybody is standing by that, and I’m all for it.”
“I’ll run through a wall for for that man,” safety Logan Ryan said.
Judge has also earned the respect of several Giants legends, including Phil Simms, Eli Manning, Michael Strahan, Justin Tuck, Mathias Kiwanuka, Osi Umenyiora and Shaun O’Hara, not to mention the in-house bunch of Jeff Feagles, Howard Cross and Carl Banks.
You simply don’t win over your entire team and some of the greatest who have ever played this game by being an ego-driven Bill Belichick clone who is out to make everyone’s life miserable.
Perhaps some of the critics should hop off Twitter and take a trip to the Meadowlands to see things in person and get an actual pulse of the situation instead of making assumptions based on a narrative largely fueled by a parody Twitter account that expertly fooled everyone — because let’s be honest, that’s exactly what has happened.
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