BY LESLIE MONTEIRO
(Photo Credit: Jon Durr — USA Today Sports)
Second-year Giants head coach Joe Judge made a great case to not be the Giants head coach next season.
Yes, the Giants getting their butts kicked by an awful Chicago Bears team of the score 29-3 should put the finishing touches for his dismissal. But it was what he said in the post-game conference that should be an eye-opener for Giants ownership.
He rambled for 11 minutes about what he has gone through the last two seasons when he was asked why he would be the right guy to turn the Giants around. He blamed his predecessor Pat Shurmur for the players he was left with. He even took shots at his boss Dave Gettleman, who hired him, for not giving him anything to work with. He also claimed his former Giants players telling him how much they miss him and gave a lecture about how it takes time to rebuild a team.
For him, it was fighting for survival. For Giants fans, not only was it gaslighting, but it was an insult to a Giants fan’s intelligence.
Let’s call it for what it is. It’s pathetic, and this should have been beneath him.
Giants fans may be delusional, but they are not stupid. They know bad football when they see one, and they know when a team is making progress or not. They realize Joe Judge may be overmatched as head coach, and with a 10-22 record in his two uninspiring years as a Giants coach, who is anyone to argue?
I was more amused at Judge saying his players haven’t quit on him in his rant. The scoreboard and the eyes tell a different story. The Giants have not been competitive since their 13-7 victory over the Eagles on Nov. 28.
Then, he goes on to say several former Giants players came up to him and say they miss being with the Giants. This is what we call being full of it. This comment sounded convenient after a loss like Sunday. For him to say this, it came off self-serving.
Instead of campaigning for his job, Judge was better off apologizing for the way his team played this season. He should have held himself accountable for the job he has done by saying this performance was unacceptable. He said none of that, and that should be concerning from John Mara’s and Steve Tisch’s perspectives.
Also, why would a new general manager want to work with a head coach that wants to be absolved of blame for everything that went wrong with the Giants this year? It’s troubling enough as it is the Giants will have a hard time getting a general manager outside the organization because he has to inherit Judge. This does not help matters.
If this is what Judge planned to do in sabotaging the Giants general manager search, he succeeded. It also showed he has his own agenda by doing what’s best for him rather than what’s best for the Giants. It’s another reason why he should be fired after this season.
Judge is now 10-22 as the Giants head coach. It’s hard for him to make a case that he should be employed when the Giants are worse off now than when he took over. He couldn’t lead the Giants to a division title last season in a year where every NFC East team stunk, and he finished his first season with a 6-10 record.
Judge and his coaching staff failed to elevate their players. Yes, Gettleman’s draft picks and free agent selections bombed, but it’s the coaching staff’s job to make them better, and they haven’t.
If the team has quit on the head coach, there’s no reason to retain him.
Judge knows the score. He knew exactly what he was doing in campaigning for his job. It was the wrong time to do this after a hideous loss. Giants fans want answers to why this team has been so bad this season, not wanting a head coach absolving himself of blame.
This is another problem of Judge. When has he taken accountability for this team’s awful last two seasons? He can only blame the players, the headsets, Gettleman and Shurmur for so long. At some point, the buck has to stop with the head coach. He is responsible for overseeing everything.
Sunday should have been the day for him to take a hit for everyone. It made sense from watching the game and seeing the final score. He should have gone with the empathy route when it comes to how Giants fans feel. He did none of that, and that was why he deserves criticism.
His players have to wonder why they should play for him anymore when he absolves himself for everything that is wrong about the Giants. They already have quit from what I saw from losing by margins of 11, 16, 15, 24 and 26 points.
Giants fans lost trust in him this season. It’s fair to wonder if he can ever win them back after this.
There has been no evidence that Judge can build a winner from watching him the last two seasons. I don’t think he can lead, either.
When an NFL head coach campaigns for his job in what a lost season, this should be troubling. A successful head coach doesn’t do that since he is secure enough to know he did all he could.
The only case Judge made is that he is not cut out to be an NFL head coach.
