If Judge doesn’t have the support of the players, what does he have?
New York Giants players have supported embattled head coach Joe Judge in public, something that continued even after Sunday’s 22-7 season-ending loss to Washington. Jay Glazer of FOX Sports, though, is reporting that Judge may actually be losing support inside the locker room.
I believe Giants brass is torn on what to do w Joe Judge bc of revolving door of coaches they’ve had in recent years. Have hesitation to move on bc they’d add to that revolving door. At same time I have heard a ton of frustration inside that locker room. Not a little, a lot
— Jay Glazer (@JayGlazer) January 10, 2022
The belief that he still had the support of the players despite the losing and awful performances that peppered the second half of the season is one of the few reasons to offer in support of keeping Judge for a third season.
If Judge’s public comments and the way he has coached some of the games down the stretch, including embarrassing his team with back-to-back quarterback sneaks from a tight formation on Sunday, have lost him support in the locker room that could seal Judge’s fate.
Edge defender Lorenzo Carter, a free-agent-to-be, said this on Sunday night:
“I’ve been a part of teams that haven’t fought as hard as we do, haven’t practiced as hard as we do every day. We practice hard. We fight for each other. Judge squeezes it out of us every day. It’s not acceptable for us to come in and hang our heads,” Carter said. “We come in every day, every week, no matter what and we work hard at it, and I appreciate that. That’s what it takes to win. I know the results haven’t been there, but I think we’ve got the right guys in the locker room. We’ve got the right mindset.”
Carter added that Judge “has something going. I like what he’s doing with it.”
Defensive captain Logan Ryan deflected a question about Judge’s job security by saying he was “ not going to answer hypotheticals.”
Ryan, though, did add that he knows changes are coming.
“The one thing I know about the league is there’s always changes. There’s always changes, it’s inevitable in this league. The roster is going to change. That was the last game we played together with those players, with my teammates collectively. I’m not going to speak on anything that I don’t know about,” Ryan said. “Some guys played their last game in the NFL today, that’s always tough. Nothing’s guaranteed in this league.”