There is a theory that each person is a composite average of the five people they spend the most time with. For New York Giants head coach Joe Judge, two of those people are New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick and Alabama head coach Nick Saban.
Those are some legendary names to fall back on, but Judge is determined not to emulate either.
During a Thursday appearance on CBS Sports Radio’s “Tiki and Tierney” program, Judge made it abundantly clear that he will not be disingenuous with his players by pretending to be either Belichick or Saban.
“I’m going to be myself. I’m not going to try to be anybody else,” said Judge. “If I try to be anybody else, it’s going to be disingenuous and it’s going to fail. If you lie to the team, you lose them right away.
“As far as imitating somebody else, that’s never been my style. Probably one of the [reasons] I’ve gotten along with the coaches I’ve worked with in the past is my personality, while it meshed, was opposite in a lot of ways to the way they presented things to the team and we kind of complemented each other.”
It’s hard not to see some semblance of Belichick and Saban in Judge’s demeanor and decision-making, but it’s also clear he marches to the beat of his own drum — and his players will respect him for that.
