Head Coach Joe Judge
October 9, 2020
Q: How did Jabrill (Peppers) come out of practice yesterday and what are your plans for him moving forward here?
A: He’s going to go through practice again with us today. We’ll see where he is kind of through the weekend in terms of what he does on Sunday. He got some work yesterday. He was a little bit limited in some things. Look, Jabrill is a competitor. We’ll see how he does today.
Q: Can he go at a certain percentage of his plays? Either take away his special teams reps or something like that if you needed to protect his ankle a little bit?
A: To me, it’s always more of a question in terms of not necessarily the reps, it’s more of a question of if we put a guy on the field, can he get hurt worse? To me, it’s a difference in tolerating pain, and that’s a player’s decision, and can he get hurt worse. If he can injure something worse or any player can, that to me is when we have to step in as coaches and trainers and make a decision for him.
Q: What do you think of your pass rush so far? How critical does a pass rush become against a team like this with so many explosive weapons down the field and a quarterback who can put the ball there with time?
A: I think there’s definitely a balance on a team like Dallas in terms of how you commit to the pass rush and how you commit to coverage. You can rush everybody. Dak’s (Prescott) a very good quarterback. He’s smart. There are plenty of clips of him on tape throughout the years of gashing teams who blitz him. There are plenty of clips of teams who sit back and try to double cover the top receivers and him getting it to another outlet who’s a very capable player on the field, and they have plenty of talent there. But to me, in the NFL, every game is critical to produce some kind of pass rush and pressure the quarterback, whether that’s with three, four, or five, or possibly even six at times, rushers. You just need to know how it balances out within the game plan based on the opponent.
Q: Do you guys think you found something there at the end of the Rams game with the way you ran the ball?
A: I’m just pleased with the way the guys come to work every week. I think we’re a better team today than we were on Sunday. I think we were a better team last Sunday than we were the week before. We’re constantly improving as a team and that’s the goal throughout the season, is to consistently get better. We’re focused on that. I love the way the guys came to work this week.
Q: I know Joe Judge wasn’t here and a lot of these players weren’t here, but the Cowboys have beaten the Giants six times in a row. There is actually no one on the Giants playing in this game who’s actually beaten the Cowboys with the Giants. Do you talk about that rivalry, what it means to this fan base, what it means to ownership, with your guys at all? Or is it just another game?
A: We spend the first part of every week talking about every organization we’re going to play. It’s very important to me that the players on our team understand the history of any kind of rivalries from our team and another team, the history between the two teams. It’s also important they understand to me not only the history of the league and the players who have played on the team and what their culture is, but it’s also important you understand the area that you’re playing against. Look, the first part of the week for me is a little bit of an education to make sure everybody on the team understands who we’re playing. That’s a team, that’s players, that’s personnel, that’s coaching, that’s the GM, the ownership, and that’s the people in the area as well. It’s important to me they understand everyone that we’re getting involved with.
Q: Just curious if you expect any changes on the offensive line this week? I know you rotated in Matt Peart for a few snaps last week. Same starting five this week and going forward?
A: We plan on everyone who goes to the game, playing. We have different packages for different guys, we’ll see how that factors in based on how the game unfolds. We plan on everyone playing in the game plan this week.
Q: Everybody knows it’s been a struggle for you guys to score some points this season. How close do you think your offense is to breaking out?
A: For us in terms of daily improvement, weekly improvement, we obviously have to finish some drives getting points on the board. Graham (Gano) has done a great job when he is on the field kicking field goals for us. Your goal is to score touchdowns in this league, that’s no secret, everyone has the same goal. For us, we just have to consistently execute and not put ourselves behind with mistakes early in drives or penalties down in the red area. We have to clean up those things and give ourselves a better chance to finish drives.
Q: You think if you do that, those things, your offense can click the way you want it to?
A: Yeah, I definitely think you can see improvement in the production we have as a team if we stop committing errors.
Q: Dallas has obviously been a team that has dominated the line of scrimmage when they’ve done well on both sides of the ball. Obviously, they have been banged up offensively a little bit. Do you think your guys embrace that idea of going there knowing that to win this game you have to win that battle up front. I know that sounds very traditional and cliché. For you guys to do that against Dallas would be a big change from what this team has been able to do over the past couple of years.
A: Yeah, I tell you what, I don’t think there is anything cliché about it. We preach every week that it all starts up front in the trenches with the offensive and defensive lines. You play a team like Dallas, the one thing they have done a great job of in their history, especially when the Joneses have been there, they have really built these lines up to be the top in the league. They have big, strong guys on both sides that play physical. They have a lot of continuity on the offensive line. I know there are some new moving parts and faces, but they replace talent with talent all the time. They do a great job of developing players internally. Defensively, they always build it for very explosive pass rushers and big bodies inside that can control the run game. For us to have any chance of success this week, it’s got to start up front for our guys. We have to play a good, physical game.
Q: I know someone asked you earlier in the week about the NFC East. I’m curious how much throughout the week have you continued to bring it up to the players that this division is wide open, look at everybody’s record.
A: The only focus we have had this week is really we’re 0-0 right now this week. We’re trying to be 1-0 when Sunday is done. The Cowboys are the only opponent we have this week and that’s really the sole focus we have as a team.
Q: Is Devonta Freeman still a new guy or is he completely caught up as far as you are concerned?
A: I don’t see him as a new guy at all. He’s definitely deep in our building right now, he’s deep in our program. We’ve got a lot of packages for him put together. As far as getting caught up on our playbook, I think he accomplished that a couple weeks ago. Obviously, that first weekend here, it’s really getting on the terminology and verbiage, make sure he’s speaking the same language. I don’t see any issues with that going forward. I’m excited to have him on the team.
