Five ways it went wrong for Joe Judge

Just weeks after he was in no jeopardy of losing his job as Giants head coach, Joe Judge was fired. How did it go so wrong, so fast? Here are five ways:

1. Daniel Jones injury

The Giants were 4-7 when the starting quarterback suffered a season-ending neck injury over which Judge had no control. The offense averaged just 9.3 points per game during six straight losses with backup quarterbacks Jake Fromm and Mike Glennon. Freddie Kitchens was a disaster in place of fired offensive coordinator Jason Garrett, and the organization’s collaborative penny-pinching decision to pull Colt McCoy’s contract offer backfired.

2. 11-minute soliloquy

After a 29-3 loss to the hapless Bears on Jan. 2, Judge delivered an impassioned 11-minute defense of his culture. It was a nice break from tired clichés about job security. Except he got carried away and not-so-subtly criticized former Giants coach Pat Shurmur, Washington coach Ron Rivera and almost crossed a line into NFL tampering. To Giants ownership, it sounded like airing dirty laundry. To fans, it rang hollow.

3. Quarterback sneaks

Never was a lack of faith in players so apparent as when Judge signed off on Kitchens calling back-to-back sneaks on second-and-11 at the 2-yard line and third-and-9 at the 4-yard line in Sunday’s finale. GM Dave Gettleman left Judge with a huge personnel disadvantage, but it was an indictment of the entire staff that it couldn’t coach backup-caliber starters to run a true play. Waving the white flag led TV analysts to make the Giants into a punching bag.

4. Locker-room messaging

Judge rarely criticized anyone publicly (Garrett was the exception) but he rode his assistant coaches hard behind closed doors to where they were looking for escape routes. Players felt Judge cared about their well-being, but tuned out repetitive messaging without seeing changes or results, according to team sources. There was wondering aloud if long practices led to injuries piling up.

5. Game management

This might have been corrected with time and a less defense-reliant team, but Judge was quick to punt on fourth-and-short near midfield when analytics suggest being aggressive. He burned timeouts in clock mismanagement in losses to the Dolphins and the Chargers. And, for all the work on situational football, the Giants were outscored 79-0 in the final two minutes of the first half this season.