Lions coach Matt Patricia thinks Joe Judge can handle coaching the Giants
New Giants head coach Joe Judge speaks during his introductory press conference at MetLife Stadium on Jan. 9. Credit: Corey Sipkin
MOBILE, Ala. -– The things Matt Patricia remembers about working with Joe Judge when they were together in New England aren’t what he said, but to whom he would say them.
“Offensively and defensively, a lot of times we're just working with our side of the ball, coaching our side of the ball, unless you've cross-trained at all," said Patricia, coach of the Lions and, this week, head coach of the North team at the Senior Bowl on Tuesday. “[A special teams coordinator], from day one, hits the entire team. So, he's very much so used to being up in front of everybody, commanding the room that way, drawing their interest, their respect, and trying to get players to play better.
“When you see that [from Judge] and you see his natural ability to do that in front of the room, you say, 'OK, this guy can handle coaching an entire team.’”
That entire team in the upcoming season will be the Giants. Judge was hired two weeks ago as the team’s 19th head coach, a move that surprised many but came as no shock to those who, like Patricia, have worked with him.
“He’s one of those guys who just invested in learning all three phases and how they work together,” Patricia said. “Joe has that background of special teams but then branched out. He would ask a lot of questions offensively [and] defensively. [He] grew his knowledge this past year working on the offensive side of the ball. He understands how that all fits together. He spent a lot of time learning about the roster, how to build that, how to put the team together. So I’m excited for him. I think it’s a great opportunity.”
Patricia was a candidate for the Giants head coaching job two years ago. He ended up with the Lions and the Giants hired Pat Shurmur.
Patricia said he has already spoken with Judge, who he said is a close friend, about some of the challenges that a first-time head coach can face. “Any way from that standpoint that I can help him,” Patricia said.
So far, Judge’s focus has been on assembling his staff. He named his three coordinators late last week and much of his attention so far at the Senior Bowl has been on interviewing prospective coaches rather than players. On Wednesday he met with Marc Colombo, former Cowboys offensive line coach, about that vacancy on the Giants. He also has selected Jerome Henderson for defensive backs coach and, according to NFL Network, will add former Patriots defensive line coach Bret Bielma in some capacity. Both Bielma and Henderson add experience to a 38-year-old head coach’s staff and Bielma in particular has head coach experience, albeit on the college level at Arkansas and Wisconsin.
According to other reports, Judge will also add former Browns head coach Freddie Kitchens and Jody Wright who also was in Cleveland to the Giants staff.
That assembling of the coaching staff is often the diciest job of a first-time head coach when he first lands the job. But there will be others.
Patricia, who was a rookie head coach two years ago, said the most difficult challenge is identifying what the new team had been doing wrong, “that unknown factor of walking into a new building and trying to identify what are the challenges for that organization.”
“There obviously is a reason you’re there and a reason they brought you in,” Patricia said. “If it was an organization that didn’t need a lot of change or didn’t need some improvement, you probably wouldn’t be there . . . It’s different everywhere but it’s all the same kind of underlying example of you’re there for a reason and that’s because there’s things to change and things that need to be fixed.”
Notes & quotes: The Cowboys approve of the Giants’ hiring of Jason Garrett as offensive coordinator. “They got a good one in Coach Garrett,” Cowboys vice president Stephen Jones told reporters on Tuesday at the Senior Bowl regarding his head coach in Dallas for the past nine and a half seasons. “He was nothing but a class act here. I know he'll certainly help the Giants get on the road to where they want to go” . . . A year ago the 49ers were coaching the Senior Bowl. Now they’re in the Super Bowl. It’s a jump any organization would love to make, but just two of them can this coming year as the Lions and Bengals are handling the players at this year’s Senior Bowl. Patricia said he has spoken with Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch of the 49ers about the advantages of coaching the college players, but quickly added: “To try to predict or project a season based on being here for Senior Bowl practices is probably completely crazy.”
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
