It is a discussion so many parents have engaged in with so many teenage football players. There is the pickup after a sweltering summer workout and, as the youngster folds his tired and sweaty body into the passenger seat of the car, the review commences.
It is no different with Joe Judge, Giants head coach, when he provides the lift home for his oldest son, 15-year-old Sean.
“The first thing he wants to tell me about every day I pick him up at practice is what they did for conditioning,’’ Judge said. “I have to explain to him, ‘I really don’t care. What did you do for football?’ Conditioning is part of football.”
Every Giants player on the roster in 2020 can relate. Starting Wednesday, with the first practice of training camp, Judge will once again stress, more than most NFL head coaches, the conditioning aspect of what goes on for the next month. Every NFL camp includes some running and post-practice sprints. What Judge showed last year in his debut with the Giants is that he is unafraid to push the envelope on the practice field, which does not mean he ignores safeguards or engages in some macho proving-ground antics.
What it does mean is that Judge tries to simulate every exact situation a player might encounter in a game on the practice field. This includes hitting, live tackling and making it, if possible, more demanding now than it might be later, when the games are here and they count.
“We went back after last year and we showed it to the players themselves and then came back in spring to explain why we practice the way we do,’’ Judge said. “It was reflected in a decrease in injuries across the board within this organization as well as relative to the league. We were one of the healthiest teams last year in the league and the healthiest this team has been in a long time.
“Look, you can’t put a player on the field and tell them to play 100 percent for 60 minutes if you haven’t trained them that way. To me, there’s a difference in practicing and training. We talk to our players all the time, we say, ‘We’re going out for practice,’ but we’re really going out to train. We’re trying to get their bodies ready to go ahead and perform how they have to in a game.
“The most dangerous thing you can do for a player is skimp on how you practice. Whether that’s conditioning to get their bodies in the right position and build up that callus within their muscles so that they don’t have soft-tissue injuries on the field. Whether that’s practicing things like live hitting and live tackling and making sure that when they go out there and the pace of the game is actually faster, that they’re in a position to be prepared to do it safely and effectively. So, anything they’re going to have to do in a game, we’re going to make sure that we practice, correct, repeat, practice again.’’
The veterans of Camp Judge know this. The newcomers will learn soon enough.
“I mean yeah, we’re definitely gonna run,’’ quarterback Daniel Jones said. “I think that’s a big piece of what coach Judge believes in and throughout the season we felt the advantages that brought to us as a team and being in shape, so what we do through this month has a lot to do with the rest of the season.’’
The Giants did sustain major injuries in 2020 to running back Saquon Barkley, outside linebackers Lorenzo Carter and Oshane Ximines, and rookie safety Xavier McKinney. They were able to avoid, or at least reduce, the hamstring and calf strains that can keep players sidelined for weeks. According to Football Outsiders, the Giants were 23rd in the NFL in adjusted games lost because of injury.
“It’s something I know not many teams do around the league but it’s something a lot of guys here have bought into and we see the benefits from it,’’ wide receiver Sterling Shepard, who has been through three head coaches in his five years with the Giants, said. “We get into the fourth quarter and see the other team gasping for air and we were doing fine. Whenever you see an outcome like that it’s reassuring that everything is working, Buying into it is the main thing.’’
They will buy in, but they do not have to enjoy it.
“It’s not the most fun,’’ Jones said, smiling. “Anyone who’s ever had to condition knows that but we understand the benefits of it.’’
