New York Giants head coach Joe Judge admitted that malfunctioning headsets are “not what this is about,” when sifting through the rubble of a 20-17 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs on Monday night — but he certainly made sure that everyone knew about it.
“That’s the issue right there,” Judge said. “We are trying to make the right call. … We have to make sure the hardware is working. So whatever the issue with that is, the people involved better get it fixed fast.”
The Giants have apparently been dealing with headset issues all season, making communication between the coaches and players all the more difficult. It’s a large reason why the Giants burned through their first-half timeouts, leaving them with none on a vital final drive before the break that could have yielded an all-important field goal.
Instead, the drive ended with a pair of penalties before quarterback Daniel Jones took a knee to prompt halftime.
“We deal with the league and they keep telling us about different software updates or whatever it is,” Judge continued.
“Whoever is in charge of it, I don’t know if it’s through the league or us exactly, but they’ve gotta fix it fast. That’s it.”
Probably more of an issue than headsets (read that as definitely) was the Giants’ astounding lack of composure. They committed 10 penalties — the most egregious one coming with less than five minutes remaining in the fourth quarter when Oshane Ximines jumped offside to negate a Darnay Holmes interception of Patrick Mahomes.
With a second chance, the Chiefs drove down to kick the game-winning field goal.
“We have to eliminate the mistakes that we make down the stretch,” Judge said. “We can’t allow a team like this to have extra opportunities, and we can’t rob opportunities from ourselves with breakdowns in focus.”
That probably should take precedence over the faulty headsets.
