Getty Ex-Giants head coach Pat Shurmur responded to Joe Judge's unnecessary shot directed towards him following Sunday's loss to the Bears on January 2.
If you listened to Giants head coach Joe Judge’s 11-minute postgame rant with the media following Sunday’s latest 29-3 loss to the Chicago Bears on January 2, it sounded like an individual that was begging for ownership to give him another season to try to turn the ship around.
Not only did Judge, who has gone an abysmal 10-22 since taking over as Giants head coach in 2020, come off as desperate, but he also took an unnecessary shot at his predecessor, Pat Shurmur.
“When I came here and sat down with all the players and I wanted to know what it was like in here, what we had to change, I wanted to hear it from their mouths,” Judge told reporters. “To a man, every player looked me in the eye and said: ‘Joe, it’s not a team, they don’t play hard, we’re out of the playoffs, everybody quit, everybody tapped out, (stopped) showing up to captains’ meetings, all that stuff, all right? They tapped out, OK?”
Basically, Judge is blaming his losing tenure on the mess he inherited from Shurmur, who went 9-23 in two seasons as head coach of the Giants from 2018-2019. Judge also referenced how players were planning offseason vacations and bringing their golf bags into the locker room during the Shurmur regime.
Fast forward to Wednesday, January 5, when Shurmur, the current offensive coordinator of the Denver Broncos, was asked about Judge’s comments.
“I obviously — that’s not an accurate assessment,” Shurmur told Broncos reporters. “But beyond that, I have no comment.”
In the end, Shurmur chose to take the high road, despite Judge’s unorthodox public finger pointing towards him. And although Judge did in fact inherit a messy situation, it doesn’t change the reality that his team took a significant step back in his second season as head coach.
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Regression
Last year, Judge’s first with the Giants, the team was eliminated from playoff contention on the final evening of the regular season. After starting off 1-7, the Giants finished the second half strong with a 5-3 record, which made it appear as though they were headed in the right direction.
And had tight end Evan Engram not dropped a critical pass that would have sealed a victory over the Eagles on October 22, 2020, the Giants could very well have finished at 7-9 and captured the NFC East title in Judge’s rookie year since they held the tiebreaker over the eventual division champion Washington Football Team.
Regardless, the Giants’ promising end to the season created expectations heading into 2021. Especially after the front office went on a spending spree in free agency by signing Kenny Golladay (four-years, $72 million), Adoree’ Jackson (three-years, $39 million) and Leonard Williams (three-years, $63 million).
However, they cut their best offensive lineman in Kevin Zeitler in order to create cap space to make these moves, which proved to be a crucial mistake. They’ve also dealt with a number of injuries and underperformance this year, resulting in a 4-12 record.
But even before the injury bug really began to hit the Giants, they got off to a brutal 0-3 start, losing to the Broncos, Washington Football Team and Atlanta Falcons in the process.
After the coaching staff made the most out of a roster full of holes last season, they struggled to produce similar results in year-two. For that, the Giants could potentially be looking for a new head coach for the fourth time since 2016.
Roster Moves
The Giants made a flurry of roster moves on January 5 ahead of their regular season finale with Washington on Sunday.
As the team announced earlier this afternoon, they have activated: Korey Cunningham, Dexter Lawrence, Danny Shelton and Darius Slayton from the reserve/COVID-19 list. Omari Cobb and Ka’dar Hollman are also back from the COVID list and were restored to the practice squad as well.
In addition to this group, the Giants placed rookie edge rusher Elerson Smith on injured reserve with a neck injury. Smith finished his rookie campaign with eight tackles, a forced fumble and two quarterback hits across 107 snaps in eight games. Smith was selected in the fourth-round of the 2021 NFL Draft by the Giants out of the University of Northern Iowa.