New York Giants to hold intrasquad scrimmage next week

The New York Giants’ initial padded practices are right around the corner, and Joe Judge has an interesting and productive idea in mind.

Of course, this year’s training camp period has started off slow in comparison to others. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, teams such as the New York Giants have yet to take part in padded practices, a period that would’ve already been well underway if not for this deadly virus lingering upon us.

Nonetheless, the Giants will finally take that next step on Monday, and with that, newly hired head coach Joe Judge will actually be holding an intrasquad scrimmage next Friday.

“That will look a whole lot like every high school and college football scrimmage in America, offense on one sideline and defense on the other,” Judge said, per Tom Rock of Newsday. “We’ll create situations on the field, let them play live football all the way through. We have to have an opportunity to let our guys play at full speed and let them go out and experience the game and demonstrate that they can operate in it when coaches aren’t yelling in their ear and trying to make corrections. We just want to get them out there and let them play.”

Judge additionally stated to the media that he plans to hold a scrimmage in each of the three weeks prior to the regular-season opener. The Giants will take on the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sept. 14 to commence their (hopeful) 16-game slate.

This all comes in the midst of a canceled preseason. There are indeed rookies and young players in general who likely needed those exhibition games in order to prove to the coaching staff what they could bring to the table. These scrimmages, while not entirely the same as preseason matchups against other organizations, should be able to somewhat fill that void.