Joe Judge being tested in unusual ways at start of NY Giants tenure
4. Limited training camp/No Preseason
And now, as if all the previous things the new NY Giants coach has had to deal with, he’s likely been served with the most difficult aspect of his first-year job in the last 24 hours as the NFL and NFLPA officially announced that they will be foregoing preseason games entirely, while limited the number of players involved in training camp and its intensity.
In other words, Judge will have about maybe 2-3 weeks of hard practice time to make all the difficult roster determinations he’ll have to make with players he’s mainly never seen up close and personal.
Joe Judge’s entire offseason mantra has not been naming any players by name or responding directly to reporter’s questions about said players, as he was clearly looking to foster as much competition as possible, even going as far as to say no one on the team had a spot set in stone (he even refused to name Daniel Jones the starter by name at one point).
Discussed in detail right here last night, this latest news will hit the NY Giants harder than most – if not all- teams.
When you combined the fact that the team is in clear rebuilding mode with an incredibly young roster with an entirely new coaching staff and young QB, you could make the argument that Joe Judge is now being almost set up to fail in his rookie campaign.
Even just limiting the number of players allowed on the offseason roster from 90 to 80 will make it difficult for Judge to find a diamond in the rough or two, you know, something that could actually jumpstart this NY Giants rebuild.
Instead, he’ll basically oversee a short training camp that will involve mostly strength and conditioning as he tries to make key evaluations that will have long-lasting effects on the NY Giants.
Additionally, he’ll likely have to play it safe and lean on medicore veterans rather than filling out his roster with inecxperienced players with potential higher ceilings due to not being able to get proper evaluations done.
Oh, and installing brand new offensive and defensive systems without the “luxury” of any real game time? Good luck with that.
To say Joe Judge is behind the eight ball in his rookie campaign is the understatement of the century and it’s through no fault of his own.
When combining all these factors, it’s again difficult to think of a single coach that’s had to navigate more difficult circumstances before ever putting a whistle in their mouth.
As hard a Hurricane Katrina was on Sean Payton and the New Orleans Saints back in 2006, at least is happened in late August after the team’s offseason program was just about completed in full, something Joe Judge will know nothing about until his second year in charge at the earliest.