On Monday night, New York Giants coach Joe Judge echoed the sentiments of his dressing room and the football world as a whole when he aimed at Doug Pederson and the Philadelphia Eagles.
Less than 24 hours after Pederson pulled quarterback Jalen Hurts and started shooting deliberately on national television, Judge took the opportunity with an all-time rant.
“It is our responsibility to take care of our opportunities and perform better and execute situations when they are on our plate. We never want to leave our destiny in the hands of anyone else, ”said Judge. “We are not going to make excuses as an organization. Not now, not ever. We had our opportunities. We need to learn from the lessons we have learned from this year and take them forward.
“That said, obviously the players asked me throughout the day. The only thing to keep in mind this season is that many people have chosen it. Many people chose to enter. Coaches, players, that includes family members too. Looking at a group of adult men whom I ask you to work hard day after day and empty your tank. I can look them in the eye and guarantee that I will always do everything to put them at a competitive advantage and put them in a position of strength. For me, you never want to disrespect these players and their effort and disrespect the game.
“The sacrifices they made to come to work and test each one before entering. To sit in spaced meetings, wear masks, have shields on those masks, go through extensive protocols, travel in unconventional ways and get text messages at 6:30 am telling them that the practice would be canceled that we have to do a virtual day. To ask them not to welcome their family on Thanksgiving Day, avoid Christmas meetings, we know it’s your wife’s birthday, let’s make sure to put that out of season.
“There are a lot of sacrifices that have been made by all the players and coaches in this league. There are a number of sacrifices that also happen for the family members of the people connected to them. Disrespect the effort that everyone made to make this season a success for the National Football League, disrespect the game by going outside and not competing for 60 minutes and doing everything in their power to help these players win. We will never do that while I am the head coach of the New York Giants. “
Most of the football scene applauded Judge for his comments. Only those in the Philadelphia media and a handful of outliers questioned this. Even Philadelphia Sanders’ running back essentially agreed with that, while other reports revealed that Eagles players had to be contained on the sideline on Sunday night.
It was a humiliating moment for the Eagles and it gave Judge the opportunity to put some more gas on the fire. But perhaps there were other reasons for Judge’s position – at least that’s what Colin Cowherd suspects.
Rich Eisen shared a very similar opinion on Judge’s comments, but with a light and interesting touch.
If what Cowherd and Eisen suspect is true – and it is entirely possible given how deliberate and calculated Judge is – then the Giants’ head coach is playing 4D chess while everyone else is still trying to figure out how to play checkers.
And if we’re being honest with ourselves, the fact that Judge’s comments confuse those in Philadelphia with so many of us is really just the icing on the cake.