Joe Judge challenges NY Giants’ effort, hints changes could be made

NY Giants head coach Joe Judge chided his team’s lack of effort during a blowout loss to the Los Angeles Rams Sunday afternoon

NY Giants head coach Joe Judge challenged his team at halftime of Sunday’s 38-11 blowout loss to the Los Angeles Rams, for what he perceived was a lack of effort in the first 30 minutes, and revealed Monday that after reviewing the film he saw things that didn’t reach his standard.

Without naming names, Judge says that players will find out this week what exactly he is referring to.

“Those will go fully addressed to the team and individually,” Judge said Monday on a conference call with reporters, doubling down on his biting criticism of his players following Sunday’s loss.

Judge, who is in his second season as Giants head coach, and owns a 7-15 record through his first 22 games, suggested that there could be major changes made as a result of what he saw Sunday, this week against the Carolina Panthers.

“This week of practice will determine a lot,” Judge said. “How you practice will ultimately impact how much you do play.”

Since his arrival in East Rutherford as a first-time head coach, Judge has stressed fundamentals and discipline, especially through old school practice tactics such as running laps as penalties for mistakes and punishing the entire team for a full-squad training camp brawl this summer.

But, the NY Giants have so far this season committed an offsides penalty on a game-winning field goal try against Washington, and made several other fundamental mistakes through the season’s first six weeks; on offense, defense, and particularly special teams. Including time management mistakes made by the head coach.

“I challenged guys at halftime,” Judge said Sunday. “I wanted to see who’s going to finish the game. I wanted to see what type of fight some of these guys have. We’ll go through the tape, but there are some guys I could see with the eye test right away that fought and finished, and that’s how we’re going to do things around here. We’re going to compete for 60. We have to do some things technically better, fundamentally better, better calls at times, but I wanted to see who’s going to finish this game and who was going to fight.”

Of all times for Judge to question his players, Sunday seemed strange timing given the myriad injuries his team had to fight through against a Rams roster that has the talent to compete for a Super Bowl … Which the NY Giants seem lightyears away from.

In addition to taking the field without running back Saquon Barkley or wide receivers Kenny Golladay or Darius Slayton, starting left tackle Andrew Thomas got hurt in the first half and star rookie receiver Kadarius Toney was knocked out with an ankle injury on the game’s first possession, after catching all three of his targets for 36 yards.

Still, Sterling Shepard says that he didn’t see any quit in his teammates, despite Judge’s assertion.

“We have to play with heart,” Shepard said Sunday. “I think that’s the main thing; when you look up at the scoreboard, you can tend to get down. People’s heads start to drop, but one thing that we talk about a lot through the week and what we’ve talked about since we’ve gotten together as a team is fight; no matter what the situation is, we have to fight. That was my message to the guys.”

 Matt Lombardo is FanSided’s National NFL Insider and writes Between The Hash Marks each Wednesday. Email Matt: Matt.Lombardo@FanSided.com.