During the midst of the divisional round of the NFL Playoffs on Sunday, the New York Giants made an important hire to their coaching staff.
Joe Judge picked his defensive coordinator in Patrick Graham, who had been serving as the defensive coordinator for the Miami Dolphins.
Graham replaces James Bettcher, who served as the top defensive assistant for two seasons under previous head coach Pat Shurmur.
Graham is inheriting a defensive unit that ranked near the bottom of the league and has his work cut out for him.
Here are five things to know about the new Giants’ defensive coordinator.
Worked with Joe Judge previously
Part of why Judge is picking Graham as the defensive coordinator for the Giants is due to their time together with the New England Patriots.
Graham initially got to the Patriots back in 2009 as a coaching assistant before taking over as the linebackers coach in 2011.
Judge came to the Patriots in 2012 as a special teams assistant after spending several seasons with Alabama as a part of Nick Saban’s staff.
Judge and Graham worked together until the end of the 2015 season before Graham moved onto his next assignment, which ironically enough, was with the Giants.
Graham’s second stint with the Giants
In 2016, Graham left the Patriots to take a job with the Giants as a defensive line coach under Ben McAdoo.
Graham lasted the two years that McAdoo’s staff was in place before McAdoo got fired in December of 2017.
Graham left the Giants following that season to take a job with Mike McCarthy and the Green Bay Packers as the linebackers coach in 2018.
Worked under Charlie Weis at Notre Dame
One of Graham’s stops along the way in his coaching career came in South Bend at Notre Dame.
The significance behind that? Thomas worked for another former Patriots and Giants assistant coach in Charlie Weis.
Weis was a long-time offensive coordinator with the New England Patriots before taking the Notre Dame head coaching job in 2005.
Graham was a graduate assistant under Weis for two seasons before moving onto Toledo to coach the defensive line.
A Yale man
The 40-year-old Graham attended Yale University and played for their football team as a defensive lineman.
Graham graduated in 2001 with a degree in sociology and went undrafted in the NFL before moving onto his coaching career in 2003 with Wagner as a graduate assistant.
Dreams of the CIA
When Graham attended Yale, he didn’t have aspirations of being a football coach. Instead, he wanted to either do chemical engineering or work undercover as part of the CIA.
When Graham took the defensive coordinator job with the Dolphins, he recalled how choosing to get into coaching was a better decision over chemical engineering and the CIA.
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