Joe Judge is helping his players adapt on road trips
Ever since 2004, when the New York Giants hired former head coach Tom Coughlin, when traveling as a team they would head out to the west coast and arrive on a Saturday afternoon. They would then come right back to New Jersey/New York immediately after the game.
Well, with Joe Judge now in charge, the Giants usually arrive early on Saturday and head back to the east coast on Monday.
Judge explained his thinking earlier in the season when they traveled to Los Angeles to play the Rams. Of course they used the same strategy when they headed to Seattle to play the Seahawks last week.
“To be honest with you, we’re going to kind of take a page out of a couple different teams’ books, along with the place I was,” Judge said. “We’re going to go out there early Saturday. A lot of teams travel on Friday, kind of reset that circadian rhythm. We’re going to go out there Saturday. We’re going to get out there early, get our guys in the sunlight for a little bit, kind of get them in the UV rays, which should help reset their body clocks a little bit. Being as though it’s not a primetime game at night, it’s less than 24 hours of a trip for us. It shouldn’t affect us overly in terms of that window we’re going in there. We’re going to go ahead and stay in east coast time as much as we can and wake up the next day ready to play.”
Not only does it help the Giants prepare for west coast games, but it also helps them the day after.
“We saw with this, getting a good night’s sleep on Sunday, waking up fresh on Monday. Everyone got home by, call it, 8 o’clock,” he said. “We’re actually going to get home a little bit earlier this time. We’re going to leave a little earlier. We’ll get everyone home, get a good night’s sleep. Wake up fresh on Tuesday and get rolling forward.”
It’s obvious that what is Judge is doing is working because his team is one of the hottest in the NFL after winning their past four games.
The Giants’ next two games are at home and their final road game of the season will be against the Baltimore Ravens in week 16.
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