The New York Giants begun the offseason with a need to find an offensive line coach, but that need won’t stay around for long. According to a report from Ian Rapoport, the team has found their candidate and is expected to hire Rob Sale for the position. Sale is currently the offensive coordinator at Louisiana-Lafayette, but has career experience at more relevant schools at the college level.
The #Giants are hiring UL Ragin' Cajuns offensive coordinator/offensive line coach Rob Sale as their new OL coach, source said. A key position.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) February 8, 2021
Many Giants fans are already asking the important question – is Sale good for the job? While it’s hard to judge the specifics of a position coach with just publicly available info, since position coaching involves many behind the scenes things such as teaching technique to players, we can look back at Sale’s career history and figure out some things about why the Giants might have hired him.
He was at the University of Alabama from 2007 as a strength and conditioning assistant and offensive analyst, before moving on to take up better roles elsewhere. In 2015, he served as the offensive line coach of the Georgia Bulldogs, one of the strongest teams in the SEC.
Joe Judge, of course, has his own ties to Alabama. He received a good word of recommendation from Nick Saban when he joined the Giants. And players who have played under both head coaches have said there’s some similarities between them.
Judge appears to have carried over some Alabama DNA to the Giants organization, and this hire is bringing in someone else that spent time there and can already work in a similar system. Considering the way things ended with last season’s first O-line coach, Marc Colombo, that better fit should be a big plus for this hiring and gives reason to be optimistic.