Giants coach Joe Judge blasts Eagles for disrespecting the game

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Doug Pederson’s questionable decision to lift Jalen Hurts after the third quarter in Week 17 has been the talk of the league following the regular season finale. Giants head coach Joe Judge discussed the move on Monday.

Giants head coach Joe Judge on Monday indirectly blasted the Philadelphia Eagles for their approach on Sunday Night Football.

After beating the Cowboys earlier in the day, Judge’s Giants needed the Eagles to pull off a win over Washington to win the NFC East.

Instead, the Eagles pulled starting quarterback Jalen Hurts from the game in favor of Nate Sudfeld in the fourth quarter and Washington went on to win 20-14 to take the NFC East crown. Despite Doug Pederson’s insistence that the Eagles were trying to win, Judge clearly believes the Eagles were tanking. He’s not alone in that belief.

After first saying the Giants needed to take care of their own games after a 6-10 finish, the Giants’ head coach, who just finished his first season at the helm, ripped into the Eagles without mentioning names:

Here’s his full answer:

“Obviously, players have asked me throughout the day and I just can’t express that, I think one thing to keep in mind with this season is we had a lot of people opt in to this season. OK? We had a lot of people opt in. Coaches, players, that includes family members as well. Alright, so to look at a group of grown men who I ask to give me effort on a day in day out basis and to empty the tank and then I can look them in the eye and assure them that I’m always going to do everything I can to put them in a competitive advantage and play them in a position of strength.

“To me, you don’t want to ever disrespect those players and their effort and disrespect the game. The sacrifices that they made to come into work every day and test before coming in, to seat in meetings spaced out, to wear masks, to wear shields over those masks, to go through extensive protocols, to travel in unconventional ways, to get text messages at 6:30 in the morning telling them practice is going to be canceled, we have to do a virtual day. To tell them please don’t have your family over for Thanksgiving, please avoid Christmas gatherings. We know it’s your wife’s birthday but let’s make sure we put that one off to the offseason. There’s a number of sacrifices made by the players and coaches in this league, there’s a number of sacrifices as well that come along with the family members and the people connected to them.

“To disrespect the effort that everyone put forward to make this season a success for the National Football League, to disrespect the game by going out there and not competing for 60 minutes and not doing everything you can to help those players win … we will never do that as long as I’m the head coach of the New York Giants.”

The Eagles and Giants will obviously play twice next season. Any chance we can get these two teams to face off in the season opener? Let’s put it on primetime.

By the time the Eagles played on Sunday night, they already knew they would end up with the No. 6 pick with a loss and the No. 9 pick with a win. So they were incentivized to lose that game.

Pederson has insisted he wasn’t trying to purposefully lose the game.

“Yes, I was coaching to win,” Pederson said on Sunday night. “Yes, that was my decision, solely (to play Sudfeld). Nate has obviously been here for four years and I felt that he deserved an opportunity to get some snaps. Listen, if there's anyone out there that thinks that I'm not trying to win the game –  (Zach) Ertz is out there, Brandon Graham is out there, Darius Slay is out there. All our top guys are still on the field at the end.”

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