James Bradberry was teammates with Kelvin Benjamin with the Panthers and he heard Benjamin’s critique of Joe Judge after the Giants released Benjamin on Wednesday, but the cornerback isn’t signing on to that view of the Giants head coach.
Benjamin said Judge worked to “sabotage me to get me out of there” and is “not a coach who can ever win a Super Bowl” in the wake of Judge telling him he would be fined for being overweight and couldn’t practice despite passing his conditioning test. Judge said Thursday that he wouldn’t detail his conversations with Benjamin and said there’s “no ill will” on his end.
When Bradberry was asked about Benjamin’s comments, he said Judge was not the right coach for every player but that he is the right coach for the Giants.
“It ain’t for everybody. You feel me? He’s entitled to his opinion,” Bradberry said, via Pat Leonard of the New York Daily News. “I definitely think coach Judge is tough. But football is tough. There’s a lot of pressure being in our shoes, so I don’t expect him to give us our way all the time. A tough coach, that’s how you build structure. That’s how you build discipline. That’s what he’s building here. It’s part of our culture. It ain’t for everybody, man.”
Ultimately, it won’t be the opinions of Benjamin or Bradberry that define Judge’s tenure with the Giants. It will be his record and the expectation after an active offseason is that it should improve in his second season on the job.