Giants hire Joe Judge as head coach, reportedly chose him over Matt Rhule

The New York Giants have reached an agreement to make former New England Patriots special teams coordinator Joe Judge their new head coach, and he may have been their first choice after they conducted interviews.

Judge reached a deal with the Giants on Tuesday, according to multiple reports. The news broke not long after the Carolina Panthers hired Matt Rhule, who was believed to be a top target for New York. However, Ian Rapoport of NFL Network was told the Giants were given an opportunity to pry Rhule away from Carolina but chose Judge instead.

One note on the #Giants: Matt Rhule called them before signing his 6-year deal with the #Panthers and gave them the opportunity to match and lure him to get on the plane. They declined and hired Joe Judge instead.

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) January 7, 2020

Judge also had an offer to become the head coach at Mississippi State, where he played college ball. However, he is choosing to remain in the NFL. The 38-year-old has worked under Bill Belichick for the past nine seasons and was an assistant under Nick Saban at Alabama prior to that.

Giants fans will question why the team would hire a head coach without previous NFL head coaching experience , but they obviously respect Judge’s body of work. While there was a report that they were planning to interview a much bigger name for the position, they must be confident in Judge if they turned down the opportunity to match Carolina’s offer to Rhule.