Joe Judge Defends Team's Conditioning Program
Former Giants receiver Golden Tate, who had a run-in with Giants head coach Joe Judge last season that led to the receiver being sent home from practice after an outburst on national television Judge didn't like, hinted during a recent appearance on Good Morning Football that Judge's old-school, hard-nosed program might be a bit too much on the players from a physical perspective.
“The conditioning can be a little too much,” Tate said. “Guys start getting soft tissue injuries. This is a 17-game season now. That’s long. Long. Before you can even get over your soreness from last game, you’re practicing already. I would chill a little on that.”
Judge, who on Wednesday decided to switch the team's practice plans from a fully padded affair to a walkthrough held a couple of hours earlier than initially planned, was asked if he takes into consideration input from the players regarding how practices are structured or if there had been any complaints about too much conditioning.
The Giants' second-year head coach defended the way the program is set up.
This is not an experimental program. This is a time-tested program that’s worked that I’ve been a part of on multiple levels, whether it was at the collegiate level or the professional level. I’ve been a part of this with great success.
Not only has it been a program that’s had success, it’s been a program that’s kept players healthy. There was a time we were the oldest team in the league and also the healthiest team in the league for a duration of several years.
We work very hand-in-hand with our medical department, our sports science department to make sure we keep monitors on individual players and what their individual loads are. We’re very specific in terms of what we do with our guys on a daily basis and making sure we keep tabs on where they’re at.
Judge also pointed out how last year, the Giants had a low number of soft tissue injuries as compared to the last three seasons.
Our hamstring injuries last year specifically were half the league average last year. When we look at soft tissue injuries around the league last year, our reduced time of missed (games) – while the NFL average went up, we reduced it by previous years.
In terms of missed time in practice, we had the second-fewest missed practices in the NFL last year, the third-fewest missed games excluding the IR, and among the fewest players last year to go to IR that didn’t return. Translation – our guys are healthy enough to return after missing some time. The emphasis on our program starts with player health all the time.
According to data from ManGamesLost, the Giants had 207 instances of players missing games due to injuries last season, the seventh-most in the league. However, that data doesn't break down the injuries according to type, e.g. soft tissue or broken bone.
In 2019, the Giants had 256 instances of players missing games due to injuries (fifth most in the league), and in 2018, 203 instances of players missing games due to injury.
Receiver Kenny Golladay declined to offer much on an opinion on the amount of conditioning Judge asks of his players.
"I really don’t have a comment on that," he said. "At the end of the day, we’ve got to go out there and work. The conditioning, we’re going to need it anyways. Those guys definitely get tired in the fourth (quarter) and I feel like we’re still running in the fourth quarter, so I think it helps."
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Tate also took a passive verbal swipe at Giants offensive coordinator Jason Garrett, questioning why it's been such a struggle for the Giants, who are averaging 18 points per game, to score.
“I think he can be better,” Tate said of Garrett. “Look, Jason has amazing stories. Great storyteller, but that’s not winning games or scoring points. I don’t understand why the Giants are struggling to score points. For a year last year and part of this year.
“You have the personnel," he said. "I don’t know what the issue is.”
Golladay, who was expected to help the Giants' scoring efforts, said he didn't have an answer when asked why he hasn't been involved in any big plays these first three weeks.
"At the end of the day, we’ve just got to keep putting the work in each and every week," he said. "We are right there, it’s just at the end of the day, we look back and some of those plays we just didn’t execute on. If we’re not going to execute then that’s how the games going to turn out. We’ve just got to do a better job of that."
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