Giants’ team captains react to Joe Judge re-starting practice

If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.

That’s the way the old saying goes, but that might not be quite the way New York Giants head coach Joe Judge heard it. Judge didn’t like the way the Giants started their Thursday practice, so he stopped it, gathered his players, and rather colorfully expressed his displeasure.

Then he made them start the whole thing from the beginning.

“We didn’t come out the right way and it was one of those moments where we need to refocus and get things going again. We did that,” linebacker and co-captain Blake Martinez said.

Like coaches being told to run laps when they screw up, that isn’t something you usually see on an NFL practice field.

“That was definitely the first time (as an NFL player), but it was really cool how everybody took it in a positive way. It wasn’t like, here we go, why are we doing this? It was just like, hey, this is what we need to fix, we need to make sure we get this right.”

Offensive captain Saquon Barkley also supported the move.

“I love it,” Barkley said. “That’s something we knew we were going to focus on. Everything we do is going to have a purpose behind it. Coach didn’t like how we started off, so we had to start it over. As captains and as leaders and as a team we had to step up to the challenge and I think that we responded.

“I think we all understand how big this first week is for us to set a statement on what we want to be throughout the season.”

Things will be different when the Giants take on the Pittsburgh Steelers on Monday Night Football. There aren’t any do-overs in a live game, and the Steelers won’t be so kind as to let the Giants try again if they screw up.

“On Monday there won’t be any re-starts,” Barkley said. “We’ve got to find a way to have that every, have that purpose from the beginning. It shouldn’t take a re-start for it to happen.”