The New York Giants officially hired Joe Judge as their new head coach on Wednesday. Judge will be formally introduced at a press conference on Thursday.
Judge will be the 19th coach in Giants history. He will replace Pat Shurmur, who was fired after two losing seasons with the team. The deal with Judge was in the works Monday night, which is why Matt Rhule took the job with the Carolina Panthers, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter. Rhule had been the favorite to land the Giants’ job after Mike McCarthy went to the Dallas Cowboys.
New York Giants are finalizing a deal to make Patriots’ wide receivers coach Joe Judge their next head coach, league sources tell ESPN. Deal was in the works as of last night, which is another reason Matt Rhule took the Panthers’ HC job.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) January 7, 2020
“I am humbled and honored,” Judge said in a statement. “I want to thank John Mara, Steve Tisch, Dave Gettleman and Kevin Abrams for this opportunity. Over the past couple of days, we had great conversations about where this team is and where it is headed and how we are going to get there. My job is to lead our players and coaches. The mission is clear, to win games. There is a process to reaching that objective, and we will implement that process and work that process starting today.”
Judge had been with the New England Patriots since 2012. He was the Patriots’ assistant special teams coach for his first three years in New England. In 2015, he became the Patriots’ special teams coordinator. This year, he was the special teams coordinator and wide receivers coach.
This year under Judge, the Patriots were ninth in three special teams categories: punt return (eight-yard average), punt coverage (6.3), and kickoff coverage (20.9) They ranked 17th in kickoff returns with an average of 22.1 yards on 26 runbacks.
There has been a lot of criticism about Judge being hired by the Giants. Judge has never been a head coach at any level. Unknown to most people outside of New England, Judge is taking over a Giants team that went 4-12 this year and has failed to make the playoffs in seven of the last eight years.
With the fact that Judge has never been a head coach, the question is why did the Giants hire him over experienced coaches like McCarthy and Rhule? Perhaps, this is because Judge has learned under Bill Belichick. There were people who wanted Belichick to leave the Patriots and coach the Giants. Belichick leaving the Patriots would have been a surprise, but the Giants would have been a good team for him to go to.
Whatever the reason, hiring Judge is a huge risk for the Giants. Judge lacks the experience of being a head coach and the Giants have struggled for the last couple of years. The Giants are hoping that Judge can turn things around, but there is no guarantee that he will. If Judge can’t turn things around, expect the Giants to soon be looking for another head coach.
