The following article is satire. None of the instances in this article actually happened. This was written purely for your enjoyment and is based on no truth at all.
Folks, I was recently able spend a day in the life with New York Giants Head Coach Joe Judge. I was curious to see what it’s like being a head coach of a struggling team in today’s NFL and Judge was kind enough to let me shadow him for a day on the job. It was a great experience and I’m excited to document it here on this article.
Morning Routine
The story begins in the suburbs of New Jersey at Joe Judge’s home at approximately 5:00am. Judge opens up the door and invites me inside. I walk into his house and notice that it’s very plain aside from some pictures of his family on the wall.
“Here’s the Giants current depth chart,” Judge says as he points at the blank wall. “You have to wake up and earn your job each and every day. Nothing is ever guaranteed in this business.”
Judge then invites me into the kitchen where he’s cooking up breakfast. The breakfast consists of scrambled eggs, bacon, and grits with black coffee to wash it down.
“Black coffee is the most fundamental coffee that you can drink,” Judge says. “You don’t need anything flashy to wake you up in the morning. As for the grits, if you want to be a hard working, blue collar team that makes the people of New York proud then you’ve gotta have a tough but foundational breakfast.”
Before heading out the door, Joe Judge packs a lunch consisting of various deli meats into his lunch pail, puts on his hard hat, and heads to work. Judge is kind enough to let me hitch a ride with him in his Honda Odyssey that he says is “practical” for driving when you have a young family.
The Commute
The drive to work is a smooth one. Judge makes sure that he goes the speed limit the entire time and stops at every yellow light to ensure that no law is ever broken.
“How could I go into my locker room and expect order from my players if I can’t do my part to maintain order on our local roadways?” Judge says. “Could you imagine the type of distraction that I’d cause if I got a speeding ticket? It would be the front page of all of the New York tabloids.”
As we near the stadium, Joe Judge notices a group of workers doing construction on the road we’re driving on. As we get closer to the work zone, Joe Judge pulls over his Honda Odyssey, steps out of his car, and approaches the workers.
“Hey fellas, I just want to say thank you to every single one of you for being a blue collar worker who brings their lunch pail and hard hat to work each and every day. You’re all truly the backbone of both this region and this great nation that we live in,” Judge says with tears in his eyes. “Each and every day when I head into work and coach the New York Giants I’m trying to build a blue collar team that makes you all proud by being a down hill,in your face, and fundamentally sound football team that’s not afraid to grind each and every play out until the final whistle.”
Judge then gives each and every construction worker a firm handshake and gets back into his minivan. He fights back his tears of gratitude for these blue collar workers all the way until he pulls into the Giants facility where he parks in the furthest possible parking spot since “nobody gets any special treatment on the football field and we need to establish that once we get to the parking lot of our facility.”
Morning Meetings
Once we get to the team facility, Joe Judge gets ready for his morning meetings. He is the first person in the building, obviously, so while he waits for General Manager Dave Gettleman to show up to his meeting, he prepares his ‘lap counter’ for practice to see which players and coaches need to run the most laps at practice today. As he’s finishing writing “full marathon” next to Golden Tate’s name, Dave Gettleman walks in the door and their conversation goes like this.
Dave Gettleman: Good morning, Joe. How are you?
Joe Judge: I won’t be good again until we get a victory that I will enjoy for that night and that night only before getting back to work. How are you?
Dave Gettleman: I’m doing great! I just got done looking at film of defensive tackles for the upcoming draft. I figure we can take at least four of them if they fall to us and if they don’t, I’ll trade all of our draft picks for current defensive tackles with bad contracts anyway. Hey man, listen, when are you gonna start winning some games again? John Mara is getting tons of strongly written letters from pissed off fans and I’m worried he’s going to figure out that I’m not the guy anymore.
Joe Judge: Tell me about it. Just wait until he finds out what Tweetbook or Instaface is. He’d be super angry to see what the fans say about him on there.
*Both men laugh for like ten minutes*
Dave Gettleman then leaves the room to go negotiate Saquon Barkley’s next contract. He says “I know that he’s coming off of a torn knee but I’m strongly considering giving him Patrick Mahomes type money because he’s that much of a game breaker.”
Joe Judge then grabs his whistle and walks out onto the practice field.
Practice
When Judge gets out to the practice field, he pulls out his lap counter and assigns laps. “Jones, you’ll run 3, one for each fumble you’ll likely have this week. Coach Graham and Coach Bielema, you’ll run 5 due to our defense’s lack of preparedness. Tate, if you stop running then you’re cut. As for me, I’ll be running 7, one for each loss so far this season. Coach Garrett, please clap for us all so that we have encouragement to finish our sacrifices for this team,” Judge says.
As the people who “earned” their laps begin to run them, the rest of the group begins to stretch. Joe Judge says that stretching is the most “fundamental part of practice” and that if you want to “stretch together a winning streak you need to have loose hamstrings.”
Everyone in the group is concluding their laps and stretches except for Bret Bielema, who is still on his first lap. Coach Bielema is struggling and he begins to collapse.
“Did he have a heart attack again?” Joe Judge asked. “That’s the third one this week! Get him revived and make sure he finishes his laps. NO EXCUSES!”
Practice continues on and it’s a sloppy one. Daniel Jones has fumbled the ball multiple times and Joe Judge is laying into the team. Meanwhile, as Judge is yelling at the team, Bret Bielema is revived and finishing up his laps while Golden Tate sneaks off of the running path to hit on a couple of his teammates wives. All’s right with the world again.
Practice concludes and so does my day with Joe Judge. It was a great day and I can now see that the future of the Giants is in great hands so long as Joe Judge is the one driving the bus- at the speed limit of course- into the future.