What makes some of the greatest head coaches who they are?
New York Giants head coach Joe Judge learned the varying answers to that question during his time as an understudy to Bill Belichick in New England. Serving as the Patriots’ special teams coordinator from 2015-2019, Judge had a front row seat to arguably the greatest dynasty in sports history. He had the privilege of riding on the coattails of four Super Bowl runs in that span, three of which ended in titles for the franchise.
Seeing firsthand the fruits of Belichick’s labor, Judge knew the reasons behind his success were multifaceted. The future Hall-of-Fame coach had established a winning culture centered around “the team” and garnered the respect of not only ownership but also the players and fans. Beichick also navigated the wavering media environment in one of most passionate sports cities and had a solid coaching staff with a great scheme that could turn any player into a championship caliber weapon.
Of course, it helped the six-time Super Bowl winning coach that he had one of the greatest quarterbacks to ever don a pair of shoulder pads—Tom Brady— standing right alongside him. Still, to this day the argument remains over who deserves more credit for the Patriots’ dominance, and Belichick has been given credence for the selecting and development of Brady over the last 20 years.
Like Judge, many of Belichick’s former assistants have tried to take the tutelage gained from their teacher to other organizations who’ve hired them in recent years, often ending up with negative results. When the Giants hired Judge back in January 2020, they fell in love with his identity as a Belichick student and were impressed by the then 38-year-old’s demeanor–the way he talked and acted like a coach who’s built programs from the ground up–and the vision he had for the franchise.
John Mara and Steve Tisch boldly believed they had found their own Belichick, or even another Bill Parcells. Even to this day that is reportedly their belief. Too bad in the record books, the similarities just aren’t there yet.
Since that interview, there is no doubt that Judge has been able to change some of the things he mentioned he would in his introductory press conference back on Jan. 8th, 2020. He immediately sought to figure out what was going on behind the scenes, in every area of the organization, in order to bring necessary changes to those things.
Among the changes observed have been using his autonomy to bring in his own list of guys to assist him with his vision on the coaching staff. He also revamped many of the programs within the Giants to improve how the players practiced, rehabbed, ate and took care of their bodies, and more. Most importantly, he brought in a solid core of leaders who could represent his vision for the team and assist in getting the rest of the team to buy into and change the culture within the locker room and outward.
In fact, Judge went on a seemingly never-ending rant (11 minutes long) this past Sunday following another brutal and rather embarrassing loss to the Chicago Bears, 29-3, talking about all these things he has seen improve within the culture of the organization since he took over the helm. Speaking about the lack of “golf clubs hanging out in player’s lockers” and “vacations being planned before the season ends”, Judge insisted, as he has numerous times to a skeptical media and irritated fan base this season, that he has seen the right “foundational pieces” coming together with the Giants to lead them further down the road of becoming a winning program again.
“When we look overall at what we’re doing, there’s a number of things going in the right direction that we know are foundational things,” Judge said.
However, while those are all critical components to becoming a coach and team with sustained success, there is a larger aspect of Belichick’s career that Judge is severely missing.
Wins on his resume.
Through the first 32 games under Judge’s tenure, the Giants hold a 10-22 overall record, which has contributed to them being tied with the cross-town Jets for the worst record in the NFL over the last five seasons (22-58). They’ve also solidified their fifth consecutive double-digit losing season, and with the loss to Chicago in Week 17, guaranteed they will finish at least one game worse than they did last season.
In 2020, the Giants were able to survive the brunt of a slow start, injuries and the COVID pandemic to finish with a mediocre 6-10 record in a bad NFC East division. They started 0-5, while losing key players like Saquon Barkley with an ACL tear and quarterback Daniel Jones who missed a couple games, before finding a groove down the stretch to go 5-3 and be in the playoff picture till the final night of the regular season. Much that was attributed to their top-ranked defense behind Patrick Graham, but Judge did relay some hope that he could be the guy to turn things around.
The 2021 season has been far from the case as the Giants have gone on a degreasing death spiral. They’ve lost five games this season by a total of 20 or more points (six total in Judge’s tenure) which is more than the total number from the previous three head coaches combined. Three of their losses have been within three points—the result of a pure lack discipline in key moments—and another three saw the Giants score zero touchdowns.
Outside of the record, it seems like the product on the field gets worse than the last game with the Giants posting some of the most hideous and embarrassing numbers in recent NFL history over their recent stretch. The Giants have averaged 11.8 points since Week 12 and 9.8 over their last two games, down from the 16.5 they’re putting up on the season.
Their ability to even score touchdowns has been one of the most telling failures of the Judge era. The Giants own the league’s worst redzone conversion rate (45.9%) and have only one scored one touchdown in their last 35 possessions, per SNY. All you need to tell that they can’t score six is the fact that kicker Graham Gano is the Giants’ leading scorer with 103 points and the next closest to him is Barkley with 24 points.
To tie it all up, the Giants quarterback play, even with a change in scheme with the firing of offensive coordinator Jason Garrett in late November, has been the most embarrassing part of the Giants’ performances. In their last two games, both Mike Glennon (Week 17) and Jake Fromm (Week 16) posted nearly 0.0 QB ratings while throwing for less than 25 yards and posting six total turnovers. Glennon’s outing against the Bears posted a -10 net yards passing tally, the worst by a quarterback since 1998.
As the losses continue to pile up and the writing surfaces on the wall of Judge’s stint in New York, so too has a new fault embroiled the New England prodigy’s image—accountability. Such that if not fixed soon it could decide his fate faster than the record and numbers themselves.
During recent post game pressers and weekly media availability, the embattled Judge has clung onto the rope of excuse-making in order to plead with New Yorkers for their patience towards the work he’s doing. Constant injuries, blows to the depth chart from COVID, and implicit criticisms towards members of his coaching staff (like Garrett leading to his firing) have been overused themes. Repetitive coaches speak about execution, “putting players in the right positions”, and seeing the foundational pieces has reached the point of being utterly tedious sermons.
With each excuse crossed off the list of eternal grievances, the same issues that have plagued the Giants all season long still subsist. Garrett has been gone for weeks, yet with Freddie Kitchens as the play caller the offense has only degraded further. The unit hasn’t been totally bereft of talent lately, meanwhile they’ve wasted an entire season of Barkley’s prime behind a porous offensive line and Kenny Golladay–the $72 million receiver–has been targeted just 30 times for 127 yards the last five games while having no touchdowns since he was signed.
On the other side of the ball, the Giants defense (24th ranked) has done their best to remain steady and keep the team competitive, but the offense’s inefficiency has worn them completely thin. In some cases, poorly timed turnovers or mishaps by the special teams unit have put the defense at a huge disadvantage in protecting the endzone, causing the Giants to give up more points at a faster pace (the Giants gave up 14 points to Chicago in the first few minutes of two Glennon turnovers).
Even from the sidelines, the Giants have been an exemplification of chaos and dysfunction. It’s become one of Judge’s worst habits to burn valuable timeouts early in order to quell confusion towards the playcalling or when the team isn’t on the same page personnel-wise. The indecisiveness between conservatism and riskiness has blown opportunities for the Giants to convert on fourth down or execute a scoring drive down the stretch of a half, in which the Giants have been outscored 76-0.
Being the chief conductor of those sidelines, all that should fall on the heels of the head coach at some point. The media has stood by every Sunday just waiting for the money line statements from Judge and the fans to hear why nothing being preached has translated to the field on gameday. As hardworking paying customers, they’re entitled to a response for what has exacerbated a decade-long stretch of ineptitude and misery.
Instead, Judge has refused to put a heavy load of blame on himself and directly address the pitiful performances in layman’s terms, electing to let the criticisms toward him intensify. With the certainty of his job security becoming less defined by the week, Judge chose Sunday to die on the hill of the culture he’s created in his first two years as coach. To make matters worse, he doubled down his desperation by resorting to comparisons with a relevant division rival and verbal jabs at the Giants’ former regime.
“This ain’t some clown show organization or something else,” Judge said scoffingly at reporters as part of his never-ending soliloquy following the loss to the Bears. “This ain’t a team that’s having fistfights on the sidelines.”
“There’s a lot of teams right now that are out of playoff contention. Whether it’s golf clubs in the locker room or people planning vacations outside of it, where there’s a lot of finger pointing and blaming and shouting, all that stuff…. we don’t have any of that.” he added.
In the aftermath of that statement, a narrative developed that the remarks appeared targeted at the Washington Football Team in relation to a sideline altercation between two of their players during a recent loss. Ironically, the Giants face Washington in the season finale at MetLife Stadium this weekend, so the comments became instant fuel for an interesting storyline to what will be a meaningless and rather unfriendly environment for the home team.
Looking to create less drama for his organization in the final week of the season, Judge quickly shot down any assumptions by the media that his choice words were a cheap shot at the Washington organization. That only left room for public speculation to shift towards additional punches Judge threw surrounding a former Giants head coach and the mess Judge inherited at the end of his two-year head coaching tenure in New York.
In what was perceived to be a sharp criticism of Shurmur and his leadership, Judge shared a story with reporters of what several players in 2020 told him about the organization’s culture prior to him arriving for day one of his first head coaching gig.
“A few years ago before I came in here, I sat down with all the players and I wanted to know what it was like in here, what we had to change, and I wanted to hear it from their mouths,” he said. “To a man, every player looked me in the eye and said ‘Joe, it’s not a team, they don’t play hard, we’re out of playoffs, everybody quit, everybody tapped out, they stopped showing up to captains’ meetings, all that stuff.”
“I know you guys ain’t been in the building for two years now with this COVID shit, but I’ll tell you right now. If you’re in the damn building, you walk on through our locker room, you ain’t seeing that crap you saw before. That’s because our guys now understand how to play together as a team and understand the process of what they’re going through.”
To Judge, the entire 2,614-word monologue might have been an overarching message to the Giants’ fan base and his players in the locker room more broadly as to why they should stay the course with the current regime into the extended future. However, in throwing the book of culture and foundation building at the wall and casting implicit blame on several others along the way, it sounded more like a persuasion piece for his bosses to consider. In addition, it accomplished very little other than reveal the coach’s total lack of accountability for the losing wreck he’s led through two seasons.
Perhaps the attempt at persuasion is working on the part of Judge when it comes to the owners. According to a recent ESPN report, the Giants plan on keeping Judge as the head coach for the 2022 season. The expected decision is believed to be rooted in the Giants’ continued belief in Judge’s long-term vision, but valid concerns also linger in the organization around having to fire a third straight coach in less than two years of his deal.
Yet, if things don’t rapidly improve for Judge—on and off the field—heading into his third season, John Mara and Steve Tisch may have no other option but to pull the plug on their own Belichick prodigy.
Unlike the two longtime owners, the fans don’t want to be persuaded. They don’t want to be sold a bill of goods about the team’s culture and how it compares to other organizations around the league. Those things are no doubt important to a football franchise with as much history as the Giants have.
But here in this market it’s all about the wins. At some point, everything that is being done behind the scenes has to translate to wins on the football field. That reality has been admitted by Judge numerous times in his postgame interviews with an increasingly suspect media—that New York is a tough place to play with high expectations and the constant questions “what have you done for me lately”.
Thus far, the wins have not stacked up in Judge’s favor. In fact, the Giants move further away from ever winning again with every game they play, not to mention looking like they deserve to be relocated out of the professional level. The Giants have not entered any NFL stadium for a game with a winning record since 2016 when they went 11-5 and lost in the NFC Wild Card game under Ben McAdoo’s leadership, their last sight of sustained success.
The argument is there about whether two years is long enough for Judge to stake his claim given the injuries and other obstacles he’s had to deal with as a young head coach. Still, that same logic has impacted coaches and teams throughout the league, and some of them have still turned something out of nothing and been competitive with rosters less talented than that of the Giants.
The coach Judge once looked up to has even spent a career on making things happen with whatever roster assets are thrown at him. In Bellichick’s first two seasons as coach, he guided the Patriots from a 5-11 record to an 11-5 campaign with a developing Brady that ultimately ended in the first Super Bowl title of his reign. After Brady’s departure for Tampa Bay at the end of the 2019 season, the Pats have still managed to stay relevant in the AFC and once again are poised for a playoff run with a rookie quarterback in Mac Jones.
With a clear inability to find a way to win, all that’s being asked for is just some honest and simple accountability from the head coach. If he would be willing to stand in front of the microphone, ditch the “lipstick on the pig” coach talk and undeserved ego, and explain to the fans directly what has gone wrong this season and how it plans to get fixed, they would have no problem understanding his messaging, vision, and welcoming him back to as the coach for another season.
Instead, he’s continuously gone the route of shoving the improved culture down their throats and making them appear ignorant to what is actually going on within the walls of the East Rutherford facilities. Being one of the prodigal sons of Belichick, Judge’s head is telling him he’s the only smart one in the room and that is so blinding that he doesn’t recognize the fans see the same product he sees. That product is far from what they see, and have seen, going on in New England for two decades.
Joe Judge may want to become like Bill Belichick when the history books are being written about his head coaching career, but at the present moment he is far from that pedestal. He needs to accept that soon and change his ways before the walls completely cave in on him and he finds himself jobless and the latest forever public enemy of New York.
If the Giants go out this offseason, make the necessary changes to give Judge all the things he needs to have a solid chance at building a winning team, and the same results still shine in 2022, there will be only one underlying factor—him. All the scapegoats will be gone, leaving the head coach as the only sheep left for the ultimate sentencing. Giants ownership doesn’t want to do that right now, but ultimately they’ve always been a group that gives into public pressure when it becomes too strong and inevitable.
Before finishing the defense of his job to a widely disgruntled audience, Judge left those listening with his own take on the hardest part of the challenge that lies in trying to rebuild a struggling program. To him, one has to tackle the mentals within the team before the physical accomplishments can gain any traction.
“The toughest thing to turn over in a program, the toughest thing to change, is how people think, okay? How they think and how they believe in what you are trying to do.
“We’ve got guys right now that are wired the right way. Okay, they are wired the right way.”
As of now, the one mental yet to be conquered has been that of Judge. So my advice is the coach take his own words into account and use them to reshape his attitude and legacy before the outsiders force ownership to change theirs.
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