New York Giants NFL

An Inconvenient Truth: Hiring Joe Judge Was a Mistake

Folks, it seems like just a few weeks ago Giants fans were excited and optimistic for the 2021 season. Fast forward to now and the Giants are 1-5 and in the middle of another lost season. You can make a list (and we have) of everything that’s gone wrong but either way it’s getting extremely difficult to be a fan of this team.

One person who has largely escaped blame is Giants Head Coach Joe Judge but that needs to stop immediately. Joe Judge hasn’t been a good football coach over his tenure with the team. His record of just 7-15 speaks for itself. When you look at the quarterbacks he’s beaten, Russell Wilson is really the only good one.

His decision making has been awful. Judge rarely goes for it on fourth and short which is something that many successful coaches now do frequently. He never wins challenges and there have been times where he doesn’t even know when he’s allowed to challenge. His constant rotating of the offensive line, which is supposed to be a cohesive unit, is something that is virtually unheard of across the NFL.

But it goes beyond just his decisions on the field on Sundays, his old school approach having players run laps for mistakes isn’t popular amongst anyone. He’s had a hand in putting together the team over the last two offseasons that, as previously stated, has won just seven games during his tenure. He’s put together a bad staff of coordinators who he’s either decided not to get rid of or he’s not allowed to get rid of.

When it comes down to it, Joe Judge was hired because the organization was not willing to make the wholesale changes that a candidate like Matt Rhule would have made. Dave Gettleman & Co. wanted someone who was old school in a world where football has become a new school game. Just like many of the other processes that the Giants have, their process in hiring coaches is also very flawed.

When it comes down to it, I really don’t know if John Mara is going to fire Joe Judge. John Mara would rather be bad forever than make a change that will help fix this organization. But one thing I’ve learned in life is that you can’t usher in a new era when so many parts of the old era are still making decisions and influencing the way things are done. You can’t make half measures in life. John Mara is the king of half measures.

So call me crazy if I say that I want things to get bad enough so that the Giants make complete changes. I want every person involved in football operations fired and an entire new team brought in to replace them. That’s not a popular opinion. But when it comes down to it, Joe Judge is responsible for this team’s poor performance too. Maybe it’s not as much of the blame as Dave Gettleman or John Mara, but he’s still a significant part of the blame.

Giants fans need to decide if they want to place blind faith over making changes that will hopefully lead this team back on a winning path. I’m hoping the Giants choose the wholesale changes route.

1 comment

  1. Amen, I fully support wholesale changes and a brand new regime that can get this franchise turned around. I just doubt the at Mara has the courage to do it. We have been terrible for a long time now and he puts band aids on this franchise to pacify the fans. Joe Judge is old school ( as is Gettleman ) and that doesn’t work any longer as evidenced by our record. Judge must go as well, he was flawed to begin with and has proven that he cannot be an effective head coach. Please bring drastic changes to this team, us fans have suffered for way too long. Mara is old school as well so I very much doubt it will happen. Gettleman will stay on and then “ retire”. A really good grnersl manager ( no idea who that could be ) will want his own guys and players and doubt if stodgy Mara will give him that authority…..and we’ll end up right back where we started.

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