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Giants Rumors: Joe Judge's Job Believed to Be Safe Despite NYG's 4-9 Record
December 13, 2021
The seat for New York Giants head coach Joe Judge may not be all that hot despite a 4-9 start to the 2021 NFL season.
SNY's Ralph Vacchiano reported Judge is "widely expected to be brought back for his third season." That status would reportedly still be unchanged if the Giants moved on from general manager Dave Gettleman.
Vacchiano spoke to a source who said Giants co-owner John Mara "loves" Judge and believes he can be his Bill Belichick or Bill Parcells.
The Giants are all but guaranteed to miss the playoffs for the fifth straight season, and they sit last in the NFC East. Judge maintained a positive outlook and pointed to where he thought the organization was making strides.
"There are a lot of things I see week after week with our players and where we're going that I'm encouraged in a lot of ways," he told reporters after Sunday's loss. "Sometimes that is tough to see externally. The key foundational pieces have been put in place. There are a lot of things we're making progress on pushing forward."
Giants Videos @SNYGiants"It's not simple. It's not fantasy football, you don't come on in, you don't select a couple players in the draft and sign someone in free agency and say, 'everything is solved'"<br><br>Joe Judge gave a lengthy answer about why he feels the Giants are heading in the right direction: <a href="https://t.co/tpVLAE259O">pic.twitter.com/tpVLAE259O</a>
Ben McAdoo didn't make it through two full years, while Pat Shurmur was fired after completing his second season at the helm. To some degree, ownership's reticence to jettison Judge is understandable.
Judge also wasn't responsible for what's arguably the Giants' cardinal sin: selecting Daniel Jones with the No. 6 pick in the 2019 draft. Two underwhelming years from Jones led the franchise to spend heavily on the offense last offseason, a strategy that hasn't worked at all.
As good as he is when he's healthy, New York probably wouldn't mind a do-over on using the No. 2 pick on Saquon Barkley in 2018, either.
It's not as if this season is an outlier in the Big Apple. The Giants haven't won more than six games in a season since their last playoff trip in 2016. The head coaches have come and gone, leaving Gettleman as the common denominator.
Judge's critics can rightfully question what he's doing to make the team better right now, because the results aren't readily apparent on the field.
But it's not too hard to see why Mara might feel the 39-year-old deserves at least one more season with a new GM at the helm.