New York Yankees star outfielder Aaron Judge now has company. That is because there is now a second Judge who will be trying to make his mark on the New York sports scene. On Tuesday, according to Bill Pennington of the New York Times, the New York Giants came to an agreement with Joe Judge to be their new head coach. Judge replaces Pat Shurmur, who was fired on December 30.
Judge has been the special teams co-ordinator with the New England Patriots since 2012. This past season, in 2019, he also became the Patriots wide receiver coach.
The position of wide receiver coach was obviously a huge challenge for Judge this past season. Outside of Julian Edelman (100 catches, 1117 receiving yards and six touchdowns), no Patriots receiver had a notable season. Judge also had to deal with the Antonio Brown drama and injuries to Phillip Dorsett and Josh Gordon.
It will now be interesting to see who the Giants hire as their co-ordinators. At 38 years of age, it will be important that Judge will hire some experienced coaches around him. One possibility is hiring Jason Garrett, who has been fired as head coach of the Dallas Cowboys.
Many people were actually surprised that Judge was hired by the Giants. The expectation was a Patriots assistant coach would be a head coach in the offseason. The most likely candidate was Patriots offensive co-ordinator Josh McDaniels, who had head coaching experience for two years with the Denver Broncos in 2009 and 2010. However, McDaniels only had a record of 11 wins and 17 losses as the Broncos head coach a decade ago. New York loosed elsewhere and decided on Judge.
