Judge explains Giants' bizarre QB sneak on third-and-9 vs. WFT originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington
The most memorable play from the Washington Football Team’s Week 18 victory over the New York Giants was a one-yard run by Jake Fromm.
How is that possible? Well, that one-yard run with the result of one of the most embarrassing play-calls in the NFL this season.
Following an impressive punt from Tress Way, the Giants took the field deep within their own territory late in the second quarter. After an incomplete pass on first down, Giants coach Joe Judge dialed up two straight quarterback sneak plays for Fromm, with the latter coming on a third-and-9 play from the Giants’ five-yard line.
After the game, Judge was naturally asked about the decision to run two straight QB sneaks in that decision. And, what’s even more surprising than the decision itself is that Judge defended his choice postgame.
“Ultimately, look, we’re backed up. I wanted to get room. We’re going to push forward,” Judge said. “I wasn’t going to live through what happened last week in Chicago. We were going to give ourselves room for the punt. We did that. We gave ourselves room for the punt, we protected it, we covered it well. We played the field position situation how I wanted to play. We held them on the next drive.”
Uh, what?
The questionable decision from Judge came just days after the Giants head coach attempted to take a shot at Ron Rivera and Washington. Judge, whose Giants finished 4-13, went on the record this week to say that New York isn’t a “clown show organization” that has its own players fighting with one another — a reference to the skirmish between Jonathan Allen and Daron Payne a few weeks ago.
After the game, Rivera addressed Judge’s comments from earlier in the week.
“He didn’t know what our guys were going through. To make a comment like that was unfair,” Rivera said. “People don’t understand [they’ve] going through an awful lot in a short period of time.”
Rivera said he talked to Judge briefly after the game and that everything between them is “fine.”
But hey, at least Judge admitted that he doesn’t want a quarterback sneak to be the team’s third-and-9 play call in the future.
“Do we want to do that all the time we’re backed up? No, but that was the situation today with where we were,” Judge said. “I wanted to make sure the issues last week in Chicago, that wasn’t going to repeat itself.”
