Michael Irvin might be the most passionate NFL fan that also played in the league at a high level to get himself into the hall of fame.
The former Dallas Cowboys WR erupted with excitement over hearing about the New York Giants fighting each other in training camp. The NFL Network analyst delivered a full-scale testimony on why the Giants’ coaching staff should be thrilled in what they saw.
“And the Giants on the first day of pads are out here competing so they end up in a brawl. Are you joking? That is incredible…” Irvin said passionately. “… Because if you’re competing at practice, on what I call the battleground, you’re going to have so much fun and win on what I call the playground, on game day. That was incredible. I love the Giants fighting on the first day of pads.
“And everyone saw this incorrectly. You got to see this the right way. Then I said ‘Michael, that’s why God has you on TV to bring it to ’em right.’ Yeah, I gave it to you right.”
Head coach Joe Judge did not view it that way as he ordered a pair of 200-yard sprints (goal line to goal line to goal line) and pushups for the team as punishment.
“Listen, the result of having something like that in a game is going to be 15-yard penalties, ejections from the game, and for players and coaches specifically, fines,” Judge said. “So we have to understand for everything you do, there is a consequence. We have to understand our job is to put ourselves in position to win football games.
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“There needs to be lessons learned, and we need to move forward as a team and not repeat the mistake.”
Judge called it a teaching moment.
“In terms of fights, my policy has been to get guys and get them out of practice. So that happened. It involved the entire team. I threw the entire team out of practice,” Judge said. “We had more ball to go. We had two more periods of practice. We had things to accomplish. Those were things that robbed us of an opportunity to keep preparing and robbed players [of] reps to go compete.”
