Joe Judge recognizes there are bigger things than football
Giants head coach Joe Judge adjusts his mask as he coaches his players during training camp at the Quest Diagnostics Training Center in East Rutherford, N.J., on Aug. 18. Credit: Brad Penner
Even for a head coach driving his team through an unprecedented summer and facing the time crunch of a regular season that begins in two and a half weeks, there are things bigger than football.
Joe Judge recognized that on Wednesday.
It was why the meetings and practices that had been scheduled weeks ahead of time were shuffled around to accommodate a team discussion in the middle of the day regarding social injustice and, in particular, the recent shooting of Jacob Blake.
They were, Judge said, “important matters to talk about as a team. We weren’t going to cut those short. We wanted to make sure we took the time to approach what we had to.”
Practice at MetLife Stadium, therefore, was delayed by about an hour. But there was a point when it seemed possible it would not happen at all. The Giants saw what the Lions did on Tuesday, boycotting their workout as a form of protest against injustice, and were “inspired” by it according to defensive lineman Leonard Williams.
Ultimately, the team did take the field.
“Something we all thought about as a team is that we wouldn’t want to take away opportunities from guys trying to make the team since there is already less opportunity for them without preseason [games],” Williams said. “It would be hard for them to be seen if we are taking away even more [playing time]. So it’s kind of a hard dilemma with that going on, but we definitely saw what happened with Detroit and we were inspired by it. We want to do something about it, something similar to it.”
That’s something the Giants have been focused on since the spring.
Williams and Judge both spoke about the work the players and team does in the community and Judge said he devotes time each Monday and Wednesday to allow the players to connect with causes and organizations throughout the region.
“We talked early in the process that it’s OK to say something but you have to back it up,” Judge said. “So before we start going out there making a bunch of blanket statements, we want to be in a position where we are making a difference and helping people in their everyday lives . . . This is not a short-term project for us, it’s not something we wanted to do to check a box and say ‘OK, we were involved in that, remember how neat that was?’ We want to actually do something that involves this community.”
Judge said that he is often unaware of anything beyond the boundaries of the practice field at this time of year and joked that he had to be reminded to call his mother on her birthday recently because he had no idea what the date was. When news about the Blake shooting was brought to him, Judge said he spoke with his leadership council and recognized immediately that it was worthy of a full team meeting.
“Sometimes you need to have someone draw your awareness to what is going on in the outside world and when that happens you grab that group of guys and touch base because I know they’re more connected with what is going on right now in the rest of the world than we are as coaches,” he said.
He then went about moving the pieces of the day around to allow for the midday discussion. It was at that meeting that he “put a bunch of different things on the table for them to think about in terms of where they’re at,” including the possibility which everyone already in mind to follow the Lions’ example of a boycott of some sort. That idea was pushed aside rather quickly, but there was still plenty more to discuss. And the team did so, for close to an hour.
“We wanted to give our players time,” he said. “This wasn’t a distraction by any means, but it was a conversation we wanted to make sure we had as a team. There are some things that are very important within the culture and within the locker room and [one of them is] making sure the players understand we’re concerned about them and they’re concerned about us as coaches as well. We want to make sure we are all on the same page and we want to make sure they know that we support them. That’s important.”
And then they went back to work. Both on the field and, perhaps more significantly, off it.
“This is definitely a big issue going on right now and it’s been a big issue for the last 400 years,” Williams said. “I think it’s definitely time for some change.”
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
