Dave Gettleman and Joe Judge Will Collaborate on Personnel

While Joe Judge plans to bring old-school football back to the Giants, here's a look at one old-school practice the team plans to move away from.

The Giants are mostly all about old-school practices--running the ball, stopping the run, rushing the passer, and covering kicks.

But one old-school practice that they have been trying to evolve from is the notion that the general manager buys the ingredients, and the head coach cooks the meals.

Put another way, the days where roster decisions rested squarely on the general manager’s desk are over, as Judge, his staff, and general manager Dave Gettleman are going to work as a team to ensure the Giants have the best possible talent available.

“It’s going to be collaborative,” Gettleman said after Judge was introduced as the team’s new head coach. “I don’t understand where that notion comes from. That notion has got to be coming from people that have never worked with me.”

The notion stems back to when George Young was given full autonomy as the Giants general manager to manage the personnel while Bill Parcells was tasked with coaching the players.

But those days have changed thanks, in part to free agency and the shift in college athletes, particularly those who are coming out earlier and earlier and who are finding creative ways to train for the rigors of the NFL.

Gettleman said that he’s always been about collaborating with his head coaches going back to his days in Carolina when he and Ron Rivera would figure out who fit into the overall team structure and who didn’t.

That practice continued with the Giants and Pat Shurmur, and for hardcore proof that Gettleman did acquiescence—perhaps a little too much one might argue—to the coaching staff, look no further than all the former Cardinals players he brought in to help former defensive coordinator James Bettcher’s defense.

In Judge, Gettleman is going to be working with a coach who tends to view personnel through a slightly different lens.

“Being a special teams coach, you have to know every player on your team inside and out because you have to know who you can use with a limited menu,” Judge said.

“It’s kind of like when you’re hungry, you go to the fridge, your Dad says, ‘Figure out a way to make a sandwich.’ You know it’s in there, but you’ve got to find a way because you’ve got to eat. So, I’ve got to know what everybody does so I can put those ingredients together and get the most out of it.”

Judge’s approach to scouting player personnel—he doesn’t necessarily home in on ‘position specific traits, but instead focuses on the bigger picture—allows him to optimize what he has in terms of personnel rather than find himself stuck with a player with limited offerings.

“I’m used to looking at things from a big picture perspective on players in terms of what they bring to the team as a whole,” Judge said.

“You can turn around and say, ‘How good is this guy as a running back?’ Well, there are different kinds of running backs. I want to know what kind of athlete this man is and how we can use his toolset to our advantage.”

That kind of feedback has Gettleman champing at the bit to begin working with Judge on fixing a Giants roster that has underperformed, in part, due to some of his personnel miscalculations.

“At the end of the day, it’s about building consensus, and it’s about getting to the right place,” Gettleman said, reiterating that he had no problem playing what he described as a “support role” in helping the coaching staff be successful.

“I’ve been doing this long enough with Ron (Rivera) and then Pat (Shurmur). We’re going to get to the right place. It’s not (about me); it’s about the right answer.”