Joe Judge spoke to reporters Monday morning on a conference call from Los Angeles at the same time Daniel Jones was undergoing scans on his injured neck back home. By the time the team lands, they hope to have more information.
"I'd say in terms of Daniel, obviously we're still waiting on the information," Judge said before the Giants boarded their cross-country flight following Sunday's 37-21 loss to the Chargers. "I don't really have anything new for you at this moment. We have to wait for him to be cleared for contact."
Jones, who suffered a neck injury in a Week 12 home victory over Philadelphia, missed his second consecutive game as the Giants dropped back-to-back road outings on opposite coasts to the Dolphins and Chargers. In between, the Giants spent the week practicing at the University of Arizona to cut down on the wear and tear of long flights.
Jones has made plenty of those lately.
The third-year quarterback traveled with the team to Miami and Tucson. He then flew with Senior Vice President of Medical Services/Head Athletic Trainer Ronnie Barnes to Los Angeles to see a specialist for a second opinion. Jones rejoined the team in Arizona, where he was a limited participant in practice all week before being ruled out on Friday. Backup Mike Glennon, who cleared the concussion protocol on Friday, started at SoFi Stadium with Jones on the sideline.
The question now is if it will become a third consecutive week with Glennon in and Jones out. Judge was asked if he was any more or less optimistic about Jones, who flew east with Barnes last night after the game.
"I wouldn't say – I have nothing negative, nothing less optimistic about it, if that makes sense? I have no information to tell me that anything's going in a different direction," Judge said. "We're waiting eagerly like you guys are to hear what the doctors say, and we'll see where it is for this week."
The Giants host the NFC East-leading Cowboys this Sunday, their lone home game in the middle of a five-week stretch.
*Veteran defensive lineman Leonard Williams left Sunday's game in the second quarter game with an elbow injury and did not return. Judge said Barnes flew back with the MRI images to give to team doctors. Williams' 670 snaps led the team's defensive linemen entering Week 14.
*Judge gave a lengthy response when asked to expound on his comments from his postgame press conference about building a foundation and what he sees internally.
His response, in part, was: "What I see on the field right now is we have a lot of young, developing players, a lot of guys that are going to end up being impact players for us and build a strong foundation on the field. There are a number of guys who are rookies, who are in their second or maybe even third year of their contracts that are really starting to turn the corner and show a lot of gains in terms of performance on the field as players, guys at key positions that you can see as we watch these guys in terms of how they practice and how they're starting to carry it over. The reality is we put a lot of young players on the field and there are some learning curves and there are some things we have to help eliminate and can't have one-offs with mistakes. But you can see the right demeanor of play, you can see the right style of play of what we want.
"On top of being good players, we're getting the right kind of people in the building. We're getting team-first people. We're getting guys who are putting the team first on decisions they make. We're also getting guys that are fighting adversity. We're getting guys who come to work every week and no matter what happened the week before, they put in a solid week to prepare, put the team first and do everything they can to have a chance to have success. I see guys who are going ahead and they're being good leaders within the building, they're helping their teammates along the way. They're setting good examples for the young players. I'm pleased with how our veteran players are taking guys under their wing and trying to help guys develop. There are leaders within the locker room."
He continued: "There are a lot of things I see on a daily basis. I can tell every morning when I start my squad meeting where the team is at. I can tell by looking at eyes. I look at eyes all the times. I tell the players I'm always looking at eyes because I can see everything in your eyes and you can't hide it. I can see when their eyes are intent and engaged and they're working on getting better as a team and they're working on playing for the man next to them. I can see that. I can see when a guy is disengaged, too. When I see that, I've got to grab a guy, pull him to the side and figure out what makes him tick, and get him back involved with the team and make sure this guy is on the same page as everyone else. But I can see the eyes in our guys. I can see the eyes before a game. I can see the eyes yesterday at halftime knowing they're going to go out there and they're going to continue to fight and we're going to claw our way back in the game. And I can see the eyes after the game that we didn't play well enough to win, but we're going to show up as a team on Wednesday and we're going to go to work. That's what we're always going to do."
