Jason Garrett Firing In New York Offers Ominous Outlook For Joe Judge's Giants Career
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- The track record of Bill Belichick assistants moving into head coaching roles remains spotty.
While Tuesday's big news -- the firing of Giants offensive coordinator Jason Garrett -- didn't directly involve a Belichick disciple, it nevertheless does not bode well for the long-term security and stability of Joe Judge in New York.
Judge, who was a bit of a surprise hire for the G-Men in 2020, is now 9-17 since taking over for Pat Shurmur, who was 9-23 in his two seasons running the Giants. The Shurmur era, such as it was, came after Ben McAdoo went 11-5 in his first year on the job, only to go 2-10 in year two before getting fired.
Suffice it to say, the Giants have not been blessed with great head coaching since showing Tom Coughlin the door after the 2015 season.
That may be a larger issue with the Giants, who also haven't gotten quality general management from Dave Gettleman. The placement of so many of the franchise's eggs into Daniel Jones' basket also leaves the Giants with some major question marks at the quarterback spot.
Clearly, the catastrophe that is the New York Giants football team had many chefs.
Judge, though, has seemingly been one of the authors. The firing of Garrett would seem to be step one in the head coach scrambling to save his own job, but such measures almost always lead to the same place. (Hiring Garrett in the first place was a red flag on Judge right away, but that's neither here nor there, one supposes.)
For the Giants, the signs are pointing to a complete and total rebuild. They don't have the right QB, and they don't have the right GM.
Dave Gettleman is 18-40 with no playoff trips in 4 years with the Giants. His predecessor Jerry Reese was 90-82 and 8-2 with two rings in the postseason. In Reese's final 4 years, his poor record - 25-35 (fired after 12 games in '17) - was still much better than Gettleman's.
— Ian O'Connor (@Ian_OConnor) November 23, 2021
Even if the current situation makes it difficult to clearly gauge Judge's capabilities as a head coach, it stands to reason that the next GM will be in charge of building a coaching staff from scratch.
And considering the Giants have a handful of very losable games left on the 2021 schedule, it likely won't be a pretty ending for Judge, who got the job in New York despite only having experiencing as a special teams coordinator under Belichick. (He also served as wide receivers coach for one season, in a year when only Julian Edelman had a successful season at the position).
In all likelihood, another name from the Belichick coaching tree will get added to the list of duds, joining the likes of Matt Patricia, Eric Mangini, Bill O'Brien, Josh McDaniels and Romeo Crennel. Brian Flores appeared to be making himself an exception to that rule by leading the Dolphins to a surprising 10-6 season a year ago, but Miami has since dropped off significantly, going 4-7 this season. Their schedule in the next month is a bit soft, though, so the team could save face. (The Dolphins haven't won a playoff game since the 2000 season, so they'll perhaps seek loftier goals at some point. For now, a seven-game winning streak may be enough to sustain the front office's belief in Flores.)
So Flores may technically still have the opportunity to make it on his own after leaving the Belichick nest. The story, though, appears to be quite different for Judge in New York.