It looks like Matt Patricia could have some company in the Ernie Adams Booth next season. Joe Judge appears primed to join the ranks of discarded Belichick proteges who humiliated themselves elsewhere.
It’s been two years’ worth of embarrassments for Judge, who’s been putting on a second-rate Belichick impersonation act ever since the Giants hired him. During last year’s training camp, Judge removed players’ surnames from the backs of their jerseys, and forced them to run sprints. When the Giants got into a giant practice brawl this summer, Judge ordered players to do 100-yard runs and push ups on the goal line.
Unfortunately, all of that discipline doesn’t seem to be carrying over to game day. The hapless Giants are 2-6 following Monday night’s loss to the Chiefs, which was littered with screw ups. Perhaps most egregiously, the Giants burned timeouts early in the first half, and only had one as time wound down in the fourth quarter. After the game, Judge failed to take accountability. Instead, he blamed faulty headsets.
“We were having headset issues, it’s happened in every game we’ve had so far,” Judge told reporters. “We deal with the league and they keep giving us different software updates. … Whoever is in charge of it, they better fix it fast, that’s it.’”
Now that’s an example of owning your missteps. There’s no word on whether broken headsets were also responsible for the Giants not calling timeout as the Chiefs drew the clock down to two minutes during their game-winning drive.
There were other mistakes as well, including an atrocious offsides penalty that nixed an interception on Kansas City’s final drive. The Giants are now 8-16 under Judge. That’s good for a .333 winning percentage. Only five NFL teams have won fewer games in that span.
The Lions had a .314 winning percentage under Patricia (13-29-1), for what it’s worth.
Since Judge has three years left on his contract, the Giants will be forced to eat a sizable sum of money if they fire him. That means Judge would be free to work elsewhere, while the Giants pay him millions.
Patricia is working under the same arrangement right now, as he’s signed with Detroit through 2022. There’s even some speculation he’s working for free.
In other words, Patricia is sycophantic and cheap. Those two traits appear to be a prerequisite for joining the Patriots’ staff these days. When the Giants fire Judge, he’ll probably be able to find a nice landing spot under Belichick’s thumb.
