The New York Giants made waves when they hired Joe Judge as their head coach – who has no experience as an offensive or a defensive coordinator and entirely skipped over that step of his career when becoming the team’s new head coach, but ever since the hire there’s been a number of reasons to be quietly optimistic about the direction Judge may end up taking the team.
Judge, of course, served as the wide receivers coach and special teams coordinator under Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots. Those positions don’t usually get recognition, but Judge has received a lot of praise ever since getting the job, mainly from various people that he’s worked with in the past. Now, Judge can say that at least one person also believes that he was the best assistant in the league.
The AP’s Assistant of the Year Award went to Greg Roman, but Judge was the only person that wasn’t an offensive or defensive coordinator to get a vote. Notably, former Giants defensive coordinator and recent Super Bowl champion with the Chiefs Steve Spagnuolo is one of the other names that received a vote.
It’s only one vote but it’s rare that someone that’s coached special teams and wide receivers would even be considered for such an award in the first place, which says good things about Judge and gives another reason for Giants fans to have some optimism around the hire.
Not every winning head coach starts out the same way, after all, and right now, Judge is seemingly far above the rest of his peers from the special teams coordinator or position coach background.