The head coach this time around for the New York Giants is built different, and fans have to be careful to not complain after getting what they asked for. Everyone knows at this point that things weren’t good between Joe Judge and Marc Colombo before the latter was fired and replaced with Dave Deguglielmo. The firing has attracted a decent amount of media attention and the story has shifted a bit since it was first reported, with new details being added on.
But at the end of the day, it’s hard to argue that there’s a major problem with what Judge did. He allowed Jason Garrett to bring in his own man to run the offensive line, and when that didn’t work and attempts to help the problem didn’t work out either, he fired the coach that was a problem.
This hasn’t been entirely non controversial. Especially with new info revealing how the team’s management felt using security to keep the two apart was a necessary move.
I've heard similar to what Mike is saying: After what transpired Tuesday night, Giants management thought it was best to avoid an escalation of another potential confrontation between Judge and Colombo on Wednesday, so Colombo was initially informed by security, not Judge. https://t.co/XKOsvZxg9k
— Art Stapleton (@art_stapleton) November 22, 2020
There’s a number of things that can be said about this; That Judge shouldn’t have tried overstepping and putting his own man on the staff to supplant Colombo. That he should have had a better working relationship with a member of his staff. That things should have never reached this point.
But it’s important to be careful what you wish for. It wasn’t always that the Giants have had a coach that even has the hard nosed style of leadership that leads to a situation like this in the first place. When Pat Shurmur had the job, he was criticized for not being much of a leader. He gave press conference answers that didn’t mean much, didn’t manage the staff as Judge is doing now to improve the team’s performance mid season, and was generally a “nice” coach but not a good one.
Joe Judge is proving that he isn’t Pat Shurmur
Shurmur lasted a while without losing the team because of that niceness, but it never translated into wins. Judge, meanwhile, has been at the helm while the team starts to turn things around – even after it was projected to have the number one pick after the first few games.
There’s no perfect head coaches without problems. Sometimes, with a tougher head coach there’s disputes with staff and players. And with Judge in his first year, it’s hard to expect an entirely clean transition to a different kind of culture. While Colombo did join the staff at the same time as Judge, he was still a coach getting used to a different culture than his previous one.
But so far, the matter hasn’t been a continuing problem. And before getting mad about it, it’s worth asking yourself if it’s really a problem worth talking about still. After all, the Giants had a nice coach that always kept things professional last time around. It didn’t help them very much when it came to getting in the wins column.