Giants’ Joe Judge ‘a pretty harsh critic’ of himself
New York Giants head coach Joe Judge expects his players and coaches to improve every single day, but he doesn’t exclude himself from those expectations.
Although Judge gives off the impression that he’s always in control and operating on a very specific plan, he often takes time to reflect on himself and his job. And like many who find success at his level, Judge is often times his own worst critic.
“Personally, I’m a pretty harsh critic on myself,” Judge told reporters on Thursday. “I go through every day and the first thing I do is make notes after every practice of things that I feel I can do better and after every game, it’s the same story. I communicate openly with our coaching staff and players every day in terms of what we have to do to get better. I’m very open in terms of what I think individuals have to do. I communicate that on a regular basis.
“I go through time management, I go through timeouts, I go through challenges, I go through situational football calls. I go through how we prepare, am I making sure we have the teaching progression on the field. Am I making sure the players are fully understanding this, are we handling the time allotted for meetings as efficiently as possible. I’m trying to manage the time and efficiency the best I can for the team but internally there’s always a thousand things I’m looking to improve. I have my own checklist but look I’m far from perfect and I know the things I’ve got to improve on and I’m always looking to eliminate things on that list.”
That sort of attitude and outlook will only further endear Judge to his players and Giants fans alike. But make no mistake about it, Judge doesn’t do these things to gain fans — he does them to ensure he’s the best he can be and that the Giants are the best they can be.
“I talk to the team all the time about expectations, but right now at this time of year, the expectation for them is to come in, get in shape, do their job the best they can and work as hard as they can, to pay attention and make decisions that put the team first, that’s it,” Judge said. “To simplify it. There’s a lot of expectations externally. We can’t do anything about that until we take care of the little things inside, so the expectations are there to improve at our job every day and put the team first.”
Judge will be back on the field early next week as Giants rookies and select veterans wrap up OTAs with sessions on Monday and Tuesday. After that, the entire team is off until the start of training camp on July 27.
