Joe Judge gave the Giants no choice
There was nothing that Joe Judge should have been able to say when he stated his case to convince Giants ownership to keep his job.
If John Mara and Steve Tisch had saddled their next general manager with Judge, they would have indeed exposed the Giants as a clown show organization.
Hallelujah! Heavens to Wellington Mara!
They got this one right.
Judge had to go, case closed.
Good riddance.
Of course, they sure scared holy hell out of their disgusted, disillusioned, disenchanted fan base by not firing Judge on Black Monday, but Black Tuesday came better late than never — better late than later because this is the way successful organizations are supposed to do it when even Stevie Wonder could see they are crying out for a fresh start and a clean house.
Judge appeared to be steaming toward the end zone when he fumbled his opportunity at the goal line, and Mara and Tisch recovered.
Giants fans will now keep their fingers crossed that Mara and Tisch can do a better job this time identifying their next general manager than they’ve done with their three head-coaching hires since Tom Coughlin left the building.
Bills assistant GM Joe Schoen, batting leadoff on Wednesday morning from the not-so-short GM list drawn up by ownership, won’t have to worry about getting to know Judge and trying to discern whether Judge was his cup of tea.
Now the owners need to step out of the way so the new GM can recommend the right head coach — his head coach. Who can attract an offensive coordinator who won’t have to worry about a lame-duck Judge.
When Mara decided to keep Coughlin following the 2006 season, one year before Super Bowl XLII, he said: “I am certainly sensitive to what the fans think. I have received a lot of mail. But at the end of the day you can’t make decisions on what the fans say, but what your eyes tell you and what your experience in the game tells you.”
Mara’s eyes told him all he needed to know when Judge, at the end of his six-game losing streak, ran back-to-back quarterback sneaks from the shadow of his goal line with Jake Fromm.
This was no Coughlin, no Bill Parcells. Just another wannabe.
Mara and Tisch were as smitten with Judge during their interview with him as Joe DiMaggio was with Marilyn Monroe once upon a Hollywood time.
He commanded a room the way Coughlin did, the way Parcells did.
He had Mara and Tisch at “Hello.” And when he got up there at his introductory press conference and started talking about punching the other guys in the nose for 60 minutes and fielding a team that would represent the hard-working people of this area, the boys were beaming like proud fathers.
In fairness, Judge inherited a mess and navigated his way as a rookie head coach expertly through the beginnings of the pandemic.
But Mara himself believed that it was finally time to win after Kenny Golladay ($72 million) was signed and Kadarius Toney drafted to help Daniel Jones get over the hump.
Now? The new GM might want his own quarterback to compete with Jones, and that would be a good thing as long as he picks the right quarterback.
Judge presided over a regression and a collapse during which his explanations became laughable and delusional, punctuated by that 11-minute postgame rant unbecoming a Giants head coach.
Remember too that Judge was aligned with Dave Gettleman in trusting that his young offensive linemen would jell this season.
And no one held him at gunpoint and ordered him to sign Mike Glennon as backup quarterback.
Judge fired offensive line coach Marc Colombo in the middle of the 2020 season and could never find the right O-line coach, or coaches, this season.
Time after time, from complaining about the headset communication in Kansas City to pointing the finger at and firing offensive coordinator Jason Garrett following a “Monday Night Football” embarrassment in Tampa and failing to figure out how to find the end zone without him, Judge was eager to volunteer: “I’m not an excuse-maker.“
Except he was.
He talked a much better game than he coached.
He talked tough but could not walk the talk.
There was no way he was going to save his job by telling the owners what he volunteered in his unbecoming 11-minute rant in Chicago: “I know we got the right culture in terms of teaching the players.”
Whatever he was teaching the players, it was sinking in on every day except game day?
Remember when he vowed to hire a staff of teachers who would explain how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?
Baloney!
When Mara decided to keep Coughlin after his third season without a playoff win, he said: “I think there is substantial support for him in that locker room. That is the feedback that I have received, and that’s what I have observed with my own eyes.”
You know that Mara did his locker-room homework this time as well. Believe what players say publicly about their head coach at your own peril.
“I know we’re a whole lot closer where we’re going than further away,” Judge had said.
What was it Mara always used to say? He needed to see the arrow pointing up at the end of the season, right?
Let’s not expect The Next George Young or The Next Parcells or The Next Coughlin. Hope, however, for a Black Tuesday a long, long time from now.