Judge punishes Giants for brawl

NEW YORK — Joe Judge unleashed a torrent of Fbombs and ran his Giants players into the ground on Tuesday after Xavier McKinney, Evan Engram and Logan Ryan ignited a teamwide brawl.

Franchise quarterback Daniel Jones ended up at the bottom of the pile and had to be pulled out by left guard Kenny Wiggins and defensive tackle Danny Shelton. Fortunately the QB was no worse for wear.

“I was fine,” Jones assured. “I was all good, no problem.”

Judge was incensed at players for losing their cool on their first day in pads, however, including Engram and Ryan, who are supposed to be two of Judge’s veteran leaders.

So the coach made the entire team run gassers from end zone to end zone for about 20 minutes. And he had them do two sets of 30 pushups on the goal line, all while cursing them out.

It’s a miracle no one threw up.

“Joe’s the leader of this team,” Ryan said. “He’s got everyone’s respect. And what he says goes.”

McKinney, the secondyear safety, started it with an over-aggressive hit on running back Corey Clement on the second level. McKinney dropped Clement to the turf. The hit was late and harder than defenders were supposed to deliver.

Engram escalated it by coming to Clement’s defense and smoking McKinney down to the ground. Then Ryan crossed the line with a vicious hit to the back of Engram’s neck.

That set off a wave of fists and tackles and punches, causing a pile-up that Jones joined in his non-contact red jersey.

Ryan surprisingly said he did not regret his actions.

“I’m gonna pay my punishments,” he said. “I don’t regret anything I did out there. I’m a grown man and I’m gonna pay my dues.”

Ryan assured there is “no bad blood” between him and Engram. But he said, “I told the secondary I’m their leader and I’m gonna protect them if I feel like something’s wrong.”

Clement said he didn’t have a problem with McKinney’s hit.

“It was just a hit,” he said. “But somebody else didn’t like it and the team’s behind me and had my back. But we got some running to do. . Once everybody joined the brawl I was like, ‘Coach ain’t gonna like this.’ ”

Jones said that on both the offense and defense, “there were issues with people losing their cool. And as an offense, as a team we gotta do a better job handling that situation.”

The Giants’ players seemed to think highly of Jones for sticking his nose in the fray.

“I think everyone respects Daniel,” Ryan said.