VIRUS HITS BIG BLUE’S ‘O’ COACH
Jason has COVID; Kitchens to call plays
Giants offensive coordinator Jason Garrett tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday and must isolate for 10 days due to the NFL’s protocols. So head coach Joe Judge is tabbing tight ends coach Freddie Kitchens to call plays against his former Cleveland Browns team on Sunday Night Football.
Only in 2020.
The Giants canceled Thursday’s practice as a precautionary measure, but Judge said the Giants (5-8) have prepared for this possibility all year, so he doesn’t want to hear excuses.
Garrett, 54, continues to participate in all meetings virtually. He can’t call the plays on gameday, though, which sets up the ultimate revenge game for Kitchens whom the Browns fired as their head coach last December after just one season.
“We always put an emphasis on thriving in adversity. It’s adapt or die, “Judge said Thursday, quoting one of Bill Belichick’s favorite phrases in New England. “We’ve built in opportunities through training camp and practices this season where different coaches have had to call plays for this exact situation. This is something we’ve prepared for and this is not unique in the league this year. You have to make sure you don’t lock your knees and you keep moving.”
The Giants were alerted of Garrett’s positive result on Wednesday night. The lab re-ran the sample from Garrett’s Wednesday morning test to confirm it as positive.
Fortunately, the Giants and the NFL determined through contact tracing that there were no close contacts or high-risk contacts to Garrett, even though Garrett was in the building and on the practice field on Wednesday.
“Immediately we made sure all the coaches that were in the building became isolated in their offices,” said Judge. “We did an immediate tracker on the tracings through the devices. We found out who was at-risk, who wasn’t, we were very fortunate to find out we had no high risks and we had almost minimal contacts, as well.”
Judge said he thinks Kitchens’ experience in the league as a play-caller and coordinator “fits with what we’re doing right now.”
“One thing about Freddie, he’s been in a lot of different systems,” Judge said. “He brings different knowledge from some more run heavy systems (and also some) more pass heavy systems. That builds into his overall knowledge and how he sees it. That being said our offense is our offense. We’ll see how it adjusts based on the game plan.”
Judge stressed that Garrett’s “role hasn’t changed” as OC while meeting virtually, but he also specified that with Kitchens calling plays on Sunday, there could be some new wrinkles.
“We still want to stick to what our offense has really worked on this season and make sure we’re not throwing too many curveballs at the guys out there in the huddle calling it and playing it,” Judge said. “That being said you can work on certain elements of how you want to call a game, but ultimately when the time comes, the play-caller has to call the plays.”
Kitchens said in a Zoom call on Tuesday that he “couldn’t be happier for the fans of Cleveland” that the Browns (9-4) are winning under rookie head coach Kevin Stefanski.
“They waited a long time to have something like that to go to the games and cheer for,” Kitchen said. “This team’s playing very well. They’re very talented. They’ve always been very talented. They’re well coached. They’re playing hard. They’re doing all the things necessary to have a successful season.”
Kitchens declined to comment on being fired after one 6-10 season by notoriously fickle owner Jimmy Haslam.
“I wouldn’t care to comment on anything that happened last year but I appreciate that question,” Kitchens said.
Interestingly, when asked if his familiarity with Browns players would benefit him, Kitchens quoted a Giants legend to explain why one must take that with a grain of salt.
“Something I learned a long time ago from Coach (Bill) Parcells is that just because you have success or failure one year, one week, one play, one game, it doesn’t translate to the next opportunity,” Kitchens said.
Kitchens and Judge first met when Judge was a Mississippi State grad assistant in 2005 and Kitchens was the Bulldogs’ running backs coach. The next season Kitchens left for his first NFL job as Parcells’ tight ends coach with the Dallas Cowboys.
Now on Sunday he’ll call plays for Judge — and possibly with Colt McCoy at quarterback, against his former Browns team, as well, for the injured Daniel Jones.
Only in 2020.