Safety Logan Ryan
July 27, 2021
Q: You weren’t here last summer. Do you know what to expect from [Head Coach] Joe Judge in these next six weeks?
A: Yeah, I think so. I played for a couple teams Joe Judge coached at before. They weren’t his camp – I’m sure they may be similar, they may not – but Joe Judge is tough on the fundamentals. A lot of conditioning. That’s how I made a career for myself, being fundamentally sound and being in shape for nine, ten years now.
Q: You are the player rep for the Giants, correct?
A: Yeah, as of now. Until we vote again, yeah, I am the player rep.
Q: Big picture COVID question – the memo that came out on Thursday from the League that articulated the differences between vaccinated and unvaccinated and that teams can forfeit and guys lose their salaries. How do you think that was handled from a players association standpoint? Do you think that players fully understand the consequences if they’re not vaccinated? And do you think a full player membership had a voice in creating those protocols?
A: Well, the rule where if a game is cancelled and players won’t get paid on either team was in effect last year. So, that was the same case as last year, if a game were to be cancelled completely and not played at all on the schedule – that took a lot of people aback last year as well, and obviously we were able to make them all fit. The thing is this year with fans being back in stadiums, it’ll be a lot harder to just move a game from Monday to Tuesday than when the Steelers play on Wednesday morning or something. It’s a lot less flexibility. I think it’s been made clear to all the players regardless of how you feel about vaccination – I believe everyone has their right – but the NFL is making it really difficult with the protocols to be unvaccinated. You see some other franchisees where assistant coaches have been terminated because of it and it’s very, very hard day-to-day to be unvaccinated. I know I am vaccinated. I personally am because I’ve talked to enough doctors, I believe in [Head Athletic Trainer] Ronnie Barnes, our team doctors, and my wife last year went through a couple medical procedures. She was in the hospital last year during the whole COVID outbreak, so that was pretty scary for us. I couldn’t see her as much as I wanted to, so that was important for me and my family to get vaccinated. I encourage players to, but I’m not going to demand anybody to do it if they don’t want to because that’s what they believe. It’s just going to be really difficult day-to-day and also costly with the amount of fines that they can hit you with. 24/7 monitoring, have your mask under your nose or you get fined like 15 thousand overnight, so I think the League is making it pretty clear where they want people to be when it comes to vaccination.
Q: Joe Judge was talking about last season, he says last season is last season, how can you come into this season and not be optimistic?
A: I mean, I’m always optimistic, honestly. I’m an optimist myself. Last season was last season. It has no bearing to this season. We have a lot of new players on our roster, players who haven’t played here before. Look, I think you need talent. I think you need a talented team to win, for sure, but you need that team to stay healthy and I think you’ve got to get the reps in the system. I think you really need to run your system and really put the work in together and that’s what we’re doing now. That comes in training camp. That’s just part of the team-building, team-bonding process of getting yourself in football shape and really putting those reps in and those details as players because great players help you win games, but great players got to play great together in great units and that’s what we’re trying to create is great units and obviously a great team. That just comes through training and that’s what training camp is for.
