Perspectives | How Player Familiarity Can Help the Giants Adapt During the Virtual Off-season Program

Coaches adding players they worked with before isn't a new concept, but in the Giants' case, it's something that could be a secret weapon in ensuring they can hit the ground running in Joe Judge's first year.

Long before NFL free agency began, Giants head coach Joe Judge told reporters that he wasn’t interested in adding older players for the sake of holding the hands of the younger players.

“You don't sign older players to coach the younger players,” Judge said during his private media session with reporters.

“I've got four kids, I'm not letting a 14-year-old, raise a six-year-old. You don't sign older players thinking this guy is going to teach the younger player how to be a pro. That's not how it happens.”

But there is something to be said, especially in current times, about adding players who have familiarity with what coaches have taught or run in past systems that can potentially offer an advantage to a team that, like the Giants, are starting from scratch.

Given how the COVID-19 pandemic has forced NFL teams to emphasize virtual adding players who worked with the coaches on another team provides the Giants with some invaluable resources for the rest of the players who in learning the systems and techniques expected of them, now have a peer to lean on if necessary.

Take, for example, quarterback Cooper Rush, acquired Tuesday off waivers. Rush spent three seasons with the Cowboys, who were, of course, coached by Jason Garrett, now the Giants offensive coordinator.

Although Rush only appeared in five games over his career and threw just one pass, his knowledge of the concepts that Garrett’s Cowboys ran that are likely to find their way into the Giants playbook are going to be invaluable to not only the rest of the quarterbacks' room—and in particular Daniel Jones—but the offense in general.

New coaches often bang the table to get their one-time players who produced for them in the past in the door, so this isn't a new concept. 

But this year it should help the Giants tremendously because they not only have a strong set of teachers among their coaches, but they've added an equally good collection of “teaching assistants” at quarterback, offensive line, linebacker and the defensive secondary--all positions groups that had hiccups last year.

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Besides Rush, who can help the quarterbacks room with diving deeper into what Garrett plans to run, linebackers Kyler Fackrell and Blake Martinez, each of whom had their best seasons as a pro when now Giants defensive coordinator Patrick Graham was their linebackers coach in Green Bay, and defensive back Montre Hartage, who was with the Dolphins last year during Graham’s first season as a defensive coordinator, can likely serve as knowledge points for their teammates.

Under normal circumstances, this wouldn’t be something unique to the Giants or any team for that matter. Still, in trying to overcome the challenges and build a football team that can be competitive when the games do take place, this is yet another advantage that the Giants need to cash in on in getting their team ready for what lies ahead.

This is what Judge envisioned even before the pandemic forced change.

“The way they can help that young player develop is that maybe their experience with communication or you know what they could see throughout a game plan may help the younger player play faster,” he said.

“Maybe it takes a little more off that younger players' plate, and now they can go ahead and play more aggressive.”

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