The New York Giants were seemingly done with adding staff members, but one more person is joining the team, and it’s at a position that could definitely use an upgrade after the previous staff member to handle the role hardly did the job properly – that’s the position of Director of Strength and Performance.
The role seems similar enough to being a strength and conditioning coach, but regardless of how the Giants did in the strength department last season, they performed very poorly when it came to the actual conditioning part.
Hopefully, that will change under new Director of Strength and Performance Craig Fitzgerald, who the team announced on Thursday. Joe Judge has been unafraid of going to the college ranks for staff members since becoming the head coach and that’s what he’s done again with the signing of Fitzgerald, who comes from the Tennessee Volunteers but also has career history with the Houston Texans, Penn State, and the University of South Carolina.
https://twitter.com/UTCoachFitz/status/1240765042238373889
Under Fitzgerald’s predecessor, the Giants showed how they could use help when it came to conditioning – good conditioning helps to prevent injuries and the Giants had a number of injuries last year starting in training camp and the preseason and continuing on into the regular season, making it so their top players were rarely all available. Injuries happen to every team but it seemed like the Giants couldn’t catch a break and it may have cost them multiple games.
Hopefully, with a different strength coach, different practices in training prevent that from happening again. If the Giants can avoid the same injury problems, they might just find themselves with more wins than they had last year.