New York Giants: Is it Time to Get Rid of Joe Judge?

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The New York Giants hired former Patriots special teams coordinator as their new head coach on January 8th, 2020. He gave an empowering speech at his opening press conference. Joe Judge talked about the team playing smash-mouth football and its work ethic being a reflection of its fans. But did he keep this promise?

His first season showed a lot of upside and a sense of hope for a franchise that had been at the bottom of the league. Finishing 6-10 was the best record in the last four seasons along with finishing 2nd in the NFC East. Now the NFC East was a complete dumpster fire as not one team had a winning record, but it didn’t stop the Giants. They swept the Washington Football Team, beat the Eagles, Cowboys, and Bengals. Their most surprising victory was against the Seahawks. Daniel Jones was injured and backup quarterback Colt McCoy was forced to step up and help win the game in Seattle. Even though the season wasn’t the best record or stat-wise, the team showed a lot of fight and stayed in close games. One Monday night game vs the Bucs was a clear showcase of that. Judge went against Tom Brady and Bruce Arians in front of the whole country as the game came down to a two-point conversion. The Giants ended up losing but you could tell the team was a few plays away from winning. All they needed was some better decision-making from players and coaches, nothing major.

Fast forward to the 2021 season as New York went all out with acquiring offensive weapons for Jones. Kenny Golladay, John Ross, Kadarius Toney, and Kyle Rudolph just to name a few. The season started out slow but once they beat New Orleans on the road in overtime the future looked bright once again. But two back-to-back blowout losses didn’t help along with some injuries to key players, Jones being one of them. A 25-3 victory over the Panthers was a great morale booster. In the Week 8 Monday night Chiefs game you began to see the Giants offense not clicking. All the talent they got to help Jones out could not get on the same page. Following the Raiders win heading into the bye week, the offense looked horrendous against the Bucs on the road Monday night. That was the last straw as the organization fired OC Jason Garret the next morning. Their final win would be a low-scoring 13-7 win over the Eagles and they finished with a six-game losing streak. Struggling to get at least 10 points a game should be a goal in today’s NFL but that seemed to be the problem for the G-Men. Lack of competitiveness was a clear problem in the second half of the season as well.

With Dave Gettleman retiring, the next General Manager better take a closer look at Judge. If he doesn’t feel like he’s the guy, then cleaning house is simple.