Giants Head Coach Joe Judge Says No Decision Yet on Week 2 Player Deployment

Giants head coach Joe Judge was coy about which, if any, starters won't play in Sunday's preseason game against the Browns--including quarterback Daniel Jones.

Author:
Patricia Traina
Publish date:
Aug 20, 2021 5:09 PM EDT

Giants head coach Joe Judge has been very calculated in the distribution of game and practice reps for his players, taking into consideration daily workload and response to the GPS data.

To that end, Judge, who last week gave the bulk of his starters the night off when the team opened the preseason game against the New York Jets, said he wasn't sure what his plan was regarding the workload distribution Sunday when the Giants visit the Browns for preseason Week 2.

"We’re going to see how we come out today and I’m going to talk with (Browns head coach) Kevin (Stefanski) in terms of his plans," Judge said before the Giants and Browns took the field for the second and final joint practice before their preseason game.

"We’ve talked earlier in the week about what they’re intending to do and we’re going to see how that’s going to measure up and we’ll evaluate our team after today."

Judge noted that the Giants have a quick turnaround after returning from Cleveland Sunday night. Whereas this week, the players got an extra day to rest after their preseason game against the Jets, next week, the players will get Monday off and then will reconvene to travel up to Foxborough, where they'll work against the Patriots on Wednesday and Thursday.

On Friday, the Giants will return to East Rutherford for a practice at the Quest Diagnostics Training Center before hosting the Patriots in the preseason finale on Sunday. August 29 at 6 PM ET.

"I just want to make sure we keep our overall players’ loads in consideration going into it," Judge said, "because it’ll also be a quick turnaround going from Cleveland, getting back home, training up to Boston and going against New England for a couple of days before playing the preseason game, through which we’re going to truly treat as more of that regular season dress rehearsal."

Among those whose status for this Sunday is under consideration is quarterback Daniel Jones, who didn't work in last week's game against the Jets.

Jones has seen a significant amount of work this week in the joint practices with the Browns. That could play into how much work if any, he gets in Sunday's game, Judge said.

"Yeah, that could factor for a lot of players based on what these two days look like in terms of the quality of work they got, who they’re going against and whether or not we think it’s going to be specifically beneficial for that player," Judge said.

"We’re going to talk a lot about it today after practice. We’ll probably make our final decision tomorrow morning."