From Nick Saban to Bill Belichick, Giants head coach Joe Judge has worked for some of the best football coaches of all time. He has learned from all of them, but he’s not going to try to imitate them.
“I’m going to be myself,” Judge said on Tiki & Tierney. “That’s me. I’m not going to try and be anybody else. If I try to be anybody else, it’s going to be disingenuous, and it’s going to fail. If you lie to the team, you lose them right away. As far as imitating somebody else, that’s never been my style.”
Judge, who coached under Belichick from 2012 to 2019, replaces Pat Shurmur, who went 9-23 in two seasons with the Giants. The 38-year-old Judge is eager to work with players who, quite frankly, aren’t that much younger than him.
“The first thing I love about the roster is we’re young,” he said. “I really love that. I love that we have young talent. We have a lot of eager players looking to come in and compete and make their mark – and that, to me, is the biggest thing that jumped out. We have a lot of young guys with talent, and we’ve got to develop these guys and get them going.”
That includes 22-year-old quarterback Daniel Jones, who was drafted sixth overall in 2019.
“I’m very excited about working with Daniel,” Judge said. “I love his toughness. I love his competitiveness. Those shine through right away. I want to be fair to Daniel right now and let him have the opportunity to learn the offense that he’s working in right now that he’s never taken a snap in and let him progress at his rate and develop his career over the course of time that’s going to meet the expectations that we set internally.”
As a rookie, Jones completed 61.9 percent of his passes for 3,207 yards, 24 touchdowns and 12 interceptions. At times, he struggled with fumbles; other times, he flashed franchise-quarterback potential.
“I love working with this guy every day,” Judge said. “He’s got a fire that burns in him. He brings other guys along with him. He shows up every day. He knows what you’re going to teach before you’re teaching it in terms of being prepared on material. He sets the tone for the room, and we’re very excited [for] when we finally get these guys in person. I’m glad he’s on our team. I’m really glad he’s on our team.”
The Giants, of course, have a storied history but haven’t won a playoff game since winning Super Bowl XLVI. In fact, they have missed the playoffs in seven of the last eight seasons.
Judge plans on changing that – and he knows what it will mean when he does.
“Let’s not pretend all 32 teams are the same,” he said. “This is a tremendous opportunity. This is a great market. Growing up in the Northeast, the one thing I’ve always valued is the fans. You want to be somewhere where it’s important. You want to be somewhere where the job you put work into is valued. New York, this is one of those towns. This is the town that, on Monday, they’re talking about everything you did in the game – and that’s important.”