The New York Giants surprised everyone by moving on from offensive line coach Marc Colombo in the middle of the season, but this story has more turns than initially believed. At first, it looked like the Giants were just making a move based on performance. Their offensive line has been improving, but started off as one of the worst in the league. The team making a change just because of the poor results doesn’t seem too far out of the range of likely events.
But there’s more to this story than just that. According to a report from Jordan Raanan, Colombo reacted negatively when informed of the plans to hire Dave DeGuglielmo as a consultant. Of course, in the end, DeGuglielmo ended up taking the job outright. But it doesn’t seem like that was the plan the whole time.
Colombo did not agree with the move and felt that he was being undermined, a source told ESPN, due to DeGuglielmo’s background as an offensive line coach. Another source added that the hands-on Judge wanted to bring in “one of his guys” to capture more control at a position that is not his expertise.
The report says that Judge and Colombo got into an argument that involved plenty of name calling. For most coordinators in the league, getting into that kind of argument with the head coach is a good way to lose job security, and that’s what happened to Colombo in the end. What does this mean for the Giants?
Joe Judge leaving his mark on the coaching staff
Judge has something of a reputation so far as being a tough but fair head coach, and this seems to back that up further. Earlier in the season, Judge chose to come down on Golden Tate for his outbursts by leaving him out of the Washington game. Now, Marc Colombo has been removed from his position after a vocal argument. However, in both cases, it looks like the actions taken have been mostly justified.
That sets the management style of Judge apart from Dave Gettleman. After all, many still believe that Gettleman drove off players mainly for the crime of being outspoken and too challenging for the management.
The new hire also means there’s a bit more uniformity on the coaching staff. As we know, Colombo wasn’t Judge’s guy. He was Jason Garrett’s guy, and the stylistic difference between Colombo’s way of doing things and Judge’s way of doing them didn’t seem to bring good results. But with Judge’s new hire, the position group may benefit from a coach that’s more in tune with the team’s new systems overall.
And while it’s possible to argue that Judge is overreaching by putting his own guy into place as the offensive line coach, taking a more active role in the team’s vision like this is better than more passive approaches by predecessors Pat Shurmur and Ben McAdoo.