Joe Judge Reveals Plan for Daniel Jones, Starters This Week

New York Giants head coach Joe Judge always says at least once per week that any decision he makes will be in the best interest of the players and the football team.

But according to some skeptics, Judge's decision this summer to hold third-year quarterback Daniel Jones out of preseason games has been something of a headscratcher considering Jones's and the offense's past struggles.

Meanwhile, defenders of the decision will point out that the Giants don't want to risk having their franchise quarterback take an unnecessary hit from an overzealous young defender looking to make a name for himself.

Judge, however, shot down that theory Monday.

"I would say really injury risk had nothing to do with him not playing at this point," he said. "The plan all along was to make sure (QB) Mike (Glennon) got as much time as he could in the first game when we played against the Jets, along with a lot of other guys that were in the game. Mike meshed with some of our older offensive linemen, got out there, got some chemistry together with those guys."

Judge said that he contemplated giving Jones and the starters about a quarter's worth of action last week. He changed his mind after concluding that Jones and the starters managed to get some quality work in at the joint practices combined with what the Browns were planning to do in the game.

"We made the decision based on what they had gone through from a physical load standpoint and intensity. It was a very quick turnaround going from those practices into a full game situation, so we thought this was in the best interest of the health of the players that we held," Judge said.

Judge wasn't bothered when it was pointed out to him that other teams around the league, such as the Bucs and Chiefs, have given their respective starting quarterbacks (Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes) preseason snaps.

"This to me has nothing to do with comparisons to other players in the league or their individual status," he said. "This is our team and how we choose to prepare them the best, get the guys exposure to who we thought we needed with different units and different situations, and keep building our team going forward."

Judge has been very effusive in his praise of Jones this year. He believes that even though Jones has yet to work with his entire group of skill position players, the former Duke star's has looked far more comfortable this summer running the offense than he did a year ago.

"I’ve seen improvement in his game across the board, pre-snap and post-snap, just understanding and processing," Judge said.

"I think it’s something that naturally happens for players, number one, as they go through their career and obviously a few years into his career, and now he’s going to gain more experience every year. And then being in the same system for multiple years to be able to process the decisions and the adjustments as they happen at full speed."

As for this week, regardless of the amount of work Jones gets in practice, Judge said the plan is to treat the game like a dress rehearsal and give Jones and the starters about a half's worth of work.

"My expectation at this point would be for Daniel to play at least the first half and we’ll decide on what we’re going to do in terms of coming out of halftime later in the week," he said.

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