What Joe Judge Learned From Coaching Under Bill Belichick

Giants head coach Joe Judge explained during his introductory press conference in the Big Apple what he learned while coaching under Bill Belichick.

Former New England Patriots special teams coordinator and wide receivers coach Joe Judge was introduced as the head coach of the New York Giants on Thursday. During his introductory press conference, naturally, he was asked what he has learned during his time coaching under the greatest head coach of all-time: Bill Belichick. 

Judge reiterated something that Belichick has preached over the years: utilizing the strengths of the players on your football team, and not worrying about what they can't do.  

"What I learned from Coach Belichick was real simple," Judge said. "Be flexible within your personnel. Don't try to shove round pegs into square holes. Figure out what you have. Let them play to their strengths. Don't sit in a meeting and tell me what you don't have in a player, don't tell me they can't do a certain thing. Tell me what they can do, and then we will figure out as coaches, because that's our job, how we can use that. That's our responsibility. Everybody has something they can do. 

"How many castoffs do you see around the league that end up on another team and everyone says 'wow, how did they get that out of them?' maybe they just weren't closing their eyes to what they could do. We have to, as a coaching staff, when we get assembled, we have to make sure we are sitting down, we are patient with our players, we fully evaluate them, we find out what they can do to be an asset, and that we are not foolish enough to not use that."

Comments like this are things not often heard outside of New England by NFL coaches. Luckily for Judge, he not only coached under Belichick, but also was on Nick Saban's staff as a football analyst during his time at Alabama. So, the former Mississippi State product has had the luxury of learning from two of the greatest coaches to every walk on this planet, which has helped him learn concepts and ideas that others may not understand and may not fully utilize because of their lack of understanding. 

As reported on Wednesday, Judge "blew away everyone" in Giants brass with the "tremendous" interview he had for New York's head-coaching position earlier this week. Having ideas like the ones above and being able to present them are what likely got Judge the job. A strong recommendation from Belichick also helped.