Joe Judge won’t discuss his potential future in New York, because as he as oft said this season, he ‘won’t deal in hypotheticals.”
Whatever he says publicly may be much different than what he says or even thinks privately – but what he said publicly, when asked if he felt any more pressure than usual on Sunday, was the same as always.
“I don't get into all the hypotheticals. My focus all week was on Washington. My focus was on our players. I owe it to them, I owe it to the organization not to get distracted by outside noise. That's the reality of what it is. In the National Football League, every game is important,” Judge said. “It's important to play the first game the same as the last game. We talk all the time about playing every play the same regardless of situation or circumstance. We always take that approach, we take that attitude.”
Two years to the day he was hired as the Giants’ head coach, Judge stood at the podium at MetLife Stadium Sunday afternoon and delivered another postgame speech that sounded a lot like many he’s already given this season.
One of the key themes all season has been praising the progress that the Giants have made inside the building, whether it be in building a foundation or working hard or anything else – and Judge was again proud of how his team won the building, at least.
“You want to know the roller coaster we ride, but we stay right here as an organization and as a team. We came in every week, got after the tape and kept it to what was the truth,” Judge said. “What did we do well that we have to build on? What are things that we have to improve on? That's really our focus going forward right now. Look back at the season, what are things that we did well? What are things we can build on? What are things we have to improve on? Obviously, you start with what you have to improve on. You narrow that down, you attack it with a plan of how you're going to make that better, map out how you're going to go down the course of that action and then you go ahead and identify what we're going to build on and how we tie that in while adjusting things we have to make better.”
Listen to New York sports talk now on Audacy and shop the latest Giants team gear
So, 720 days after Day 1, with all those adjustments and fixes and other buzzwords, does Judge, who is 10-23 as the Giants’ head coach, really feel the Giants are in a better place? He was asked, but again, he wanted to focus only on all of that improvement.
“I don't really get too sentimental about anything like that; I’m in a mode of looking at what's the truth, what's the reality and where are we at. To get where we want to go, what do we have to improve on immediately? That's really the mode I'm in: sit on down, lay out the plan,” Judge said. “I'm the harshest self-critic I could be. Before I get to anybody else, any player or any other coach, I always start with myself. What could I have done better? What am I not doing well enough that I have to adjust? I always start with that and then I have to look externally at what else has to be adjusted.”
Quite the Judge-speak answer, but at least he also doubled down on one other notion he’s been harping on of late: whatever the Giants are, everyone deserve better.
“As we go through this process, we've got to make sure we make all the necessary adjustments. Obviously, the fans deserve better than what we gave them this year. Our team deserves better than what we accomplished this year. I have much higher expectations as a team,” Judge said. “I'm never going to compromise on that. I'm very proud of a lot of things our team has done through a lot of adversity this year, and there are a lot of circumstances they've handled without blinking. Ultimately, it wasn't good enough.”
So, Judge is “already focused on next season” and “making every necessary adjustment,” which will hopefully lead to “the exact results we want to have as an organization.”
Whether or not he gets the chance to do that remains to be seen, anything from a formality to a mystery depending on the reports you believe. But if this is the end, well, what has Judge learned from his first 33 games as an NFL head coach?
“A whole lot, although this is probably a better answer for a later time,” he said. “Last year there were a number of things that I learned how to do on the job. There are a lot of things you learn of how to go ahead and operate within it. Probably this year, some of the things I learned are a lot more of what not to do. Some of it was things that I was involved in or something that I observed, but there were a lot of things this year I’ve learned of that will never happen again.”
And then, it was time for one more (last?) Judge pontification on football life.
“Obviously, the results aren't what we wanted, but there's a list of things that are just tattooed. You touch a hot plate, you learn it's hot. You're not going to touch that thing again,” he said. “There's a number of things that I've gotten from this year that I absolutely understand. Sometimes, the more valuable lesson is you learn what you can't do again or what you can't allow to happen again. I file everything in terms of what I learn. Everything is an experience, everything is a lesson. The important thing with what happens, any lesson you learn, is that you move forward with it and make the right decisions going forward with the information that you gathered.”
Time will tell, though, whether the information Judge gathered over the last two years will be useful for him in Year 3, or someone else in Year 1.
Follow Lou DiPietro on Twitter: @LouDiPietroWFAN
Follow WFAN on Social Media
Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | Twitch
