I’ve been through a lot with the New York Giants over the last 54 years. Some great moments and memories such as four Super Bowls have fended off a lot of losing seasons from clouding my interest.
But this latest stretch of losing is very concerning. The NFL is designed for teams to turn themselves around quickly — sometimes overnight. These Giants can’t seem get with the program, however. They make poor decision after poor decision and, teamed with some bad luck, they’ve managed to sink to the bottom rung of the league and can’t climb out of it.
When I see Joe Judge give his press conferences I can’t not see a dead man talking. He is 6-13 as head coach of the Giants and, looking at the schedule ahead and the unbelievable amount of key injuries, he’s going to continue to lose.
Judge sounded a lot like Allie Sherman after the Giants lost a very winnable game for the second straight week. He saw a lot of positive things out there.
“I was pleased with a lot of things our team did today, but ultimately we didn’t finish. We’ve got to do a better job of finishing drives, finishing the game,” Judge told reporters. “A lot of things that we saw positive that we worked on throughout the week coming out of the Washington week showed up in the game in a positive way, but big picture-wise we’ve got to do a better job finishing the game — that’s coaching, that’s playing, that’s executing, that’s making sure we do what we have to do for 60 minutes.”
For the third straight week, the Giants faded in the second half. Some suggested they played ‘scared’ — played not to lose — and by doing that, they lost.
“I don’t see that at all,” said Judge. “It comes down to making sure the calls are right, the execution is right in the moment. No, I don’t see anything in terms of that.”
But onlookers do. The Giants are not aggressive on offense and on defense they’ve been failing late in games. What is going to change going forward, especially now that they’ve lost two captains — one on each side of the football — to season-ending injuries?
At one point, I compared Judge to Bill Parcells in his early tenure with the Giants but now I can’t help seeing him as Bill Arnsparger redux — a great assistant coach who got in over his head as head coach elsewhere.
