Joe Judge sounded like an outsider during his infamous Chicago tirade, which was the most eloquent takeaway of them all.
When Judge lost his temper on January 2, undermining the efforts and culture of the Giant’s predecessor Pat Shurmur’s team, Judge sounded like a non-Giant, accustomed to the best and disgusted with what he inherited when he came.
“The biggest challenge in the club is how people think,” Judge said that day.
That’s why Judge’s firing on Tuesday night was inevitable, because the Giants are a rudderless franchise that can’t tell the top from the bottom. And while everyone in the league already knew about it, they certainly don’t want their own coach to talk about it.
It’s hard to believe that John Mara and Steve Tisch really intend to hire an outside CEO and give him the autonomy to run a fully aligned franchise because they will never give up the scales.
They don’t understand what it takes to create a winner. They are not responsible for ending a long-term makeover after Judge’s first year, instead blaming their failure on the head coach, first hired at age 38, who nearly made the playoffs during the 2020 pandemic.
The manner of the cloak and dagger with which the giants delayed the judge’s firing was questionable.
The fact that the team honored 19-46 GM Dave Gettleman with photographs on the field and defended him with a sly retirement press release – only to then kick Judge out the door – testifies to who the giants are.
It’s an arrogant franchise with high-profile friends that always manages to convince fans to trust the command shield over their own eyes.
Judge leaves 10-23 in two seasons, the third straight manager to be fired by the Giants either during or after their second season with the team.
There’s a reason they fired three coaches in just over five calendar years. This is because coaches are not the reason their lineup stinks and they constantly fail.
The Giants’ record of 22-59 over the past five years is considered the worst in the league since the Jets, and it is now an insult to include the Jets in one sentence.
Judge undoubtedly dug his own grave in the end, primarily with his insane press conference after the Bears defeat. His program was not perfect.
But here’s what happened: The giants’ undying loyalty to Eli Manning in 2017 led to them hiring GM Gettleman, who tried to win once again with QB.
Their undying loyalty to Gettleman, when Manning and the roster deteriorated, buried them in an NFL basement, costing Schurmur the job.
And then burdening Judge with Gettleman’s mismanagement cost the second coach his job before the general manager was finally kicked out the door.
Judge inherited a bad GM, a bad line-up and hired Jason Garrett as an offensive coordinator, which everyone knew was really the owner’s choice.
The attack went deeper into the tank after shooting Garrett mid-season, but the main reason was Daniel Jones’ neck injury and the offensive line with one good player in the starting five.
Judge’s ranting in Chicago made it even worse for him because it shed the spotlight on Giant dysfunction more than ever. The defense played well and hard for him, which was not the case for the two previous head coaches at the end.
But the giants’ decision to put Mike Glennon and Jake Fromm as backup quarterbacks made them look like schoolboys. So when the fed up judge ran two quarterbacks to escape security against Washington, the pitchfork went out of action and the giants had nowhere to hide.
The real shame of Judge’s firing is that he was going to be the head coach of Mississippi until Mara and the Giants saw more in him in January 2020.
Mara saw the Patriot with a vision of the new Giant Way and hired the Judge, knowing full well that it was unreasonable to expect a quick decision. Judge and the Giants agreed that this will be a long-term makeover, a process that will take time and some painful changes.
The judge has made progress trying to fix this franchise behind the scenes, including in asset management. His influence was most evident during the day’s trade last spring, which earned the Giants their second top-7 pick in the NFL draft this April.
What do you think, Gettleman, who didn’t answer the phone before picking the # 2 overall running back in 2018, suddenly realized the value of acquiring draft capital?
However, at the end of the 2020 season, the impatient giants decided it was time to abandon the long-term plan and act. They overspend on Leonard Williams, Kenny Golladey, Adori Jackson and Kyle Rudolph. They decided they could win NFC East.
They thought – Mara and Tish thought – that they were a better team than they really were.
The Giants’ inability to self-esteem is their biggest flaw. This is why they never get much better. They never know how far behind they are.
The only glimmer of hope for the future is that all nine of their general manager candidates are now outsiders, and that Mara is promising autonomy to her next CEO to manage the entire football operation, including the coaching staff.
Still, Mara’s cold, prepared statement about Judge’s protracted sacking was a reminder that the Giants’ ownership is not accountable to anyone.
“Steve [Tisch] and I both think it is in the interest of our franchise to move in a different direction, ”Mary said in a statement. “We met Joe [Monday] in the afternoon to discuss the state of the team. I met with Joe again this afternoon, and it was during this conversation that I informed Joe of our decision. We appreciate Joe’s efforts on behalf of the organization.
“Before the season started, I said I wanted to feel good in the direction we were going when we played our last game of the season,” added Mara. “Unfortunately, I cannot make such a statement, so we made that decision.”
These were the words of Mara, the same person who, at Judge’s press conference, extolled his “poise, his confidence, his leadership, his knowledge of the game.” [and] what it takes to create a winning program is his ability to communicate with players, and then of course his work ethic. ”
That’s the reason Tuesday won’t live as the judge’s final indictment. It will be remembered as a conviction against the court of Mary and Tish, who have lost all the advantages of doubt until they gain this right.
The hardest thing to change at an NFL club is, as Judge himself put it, the way people think.
