The NFL season is over officially with the Super Bowl having came and past, and this ushers in the period where each team will be evaluated during the offseason and ranked for the next season. The Chiefs are on top after bringing home the Super Bowl but where other teams like the New York Giants are ranked is a harder question – the Giants didn’t have a good season by any metric in 2019 and will pick high in the draft because of it, but whether those results will be repeated remains to be seen.
USA Today’s Touchdown Wire, in their own rankings, isn’t confident however in the Giants taking a big step forward this year after changing head coaches from Pat Shurmur to Joe Judge, and adding at least one highly ranked prospect in this year’s draft. They put the Giants at 29th, one of the worst spots out of the 32 NFL teams. Their reasoning?
Head coach Pat Shurmur was fired, and that’s not a bad thing. But he was replaced by Joe Judge. That likely prompted many New York fans to say, “Joe Who?†because Judge wasn’t a household name. Judge was the special teams and wide receivers coach for the Patriots. His New England pedigree undoubtedly helped him land the job. But this is a tough gig. Shurmur and predecessor Ben McAdoo failed miserably. Judge doesn’t have a lot to work with besides quarterback Daniel Jones and running back Saquon Barkley.
Of course, it’s also easy to say the Giants aren’t getting enough credit here – head coach Joe Judge is on his first try in the position, sure, but the good reviews from others who have been around him in the past shouldn’t just be discounted. Judge has arguably made a bigger wave since joining the Giants than Shurmur did, and has more of a stable career history compared to Shurmur, who was largely hired based on one year of success as an offensive coordinator.
The New York Giants do, however, have a number of holes in the team as the article states – but not every area is bad. There’s some depth at receiver with Sterling Shepard, Golden Tate, and the rising Darius Slayton. And while the offensive line and the secondary could use new players, both of those areas are expected to see upgrades soon in the draft and free agency.
The Giants are an underdog for sure going into the 2020 season and not many will expect them to do much, but perhaps fans have some reason to believe that things might be better than being the 29th best team.