Joe Judge — or Joseph Judge — is still catching strays.
Former Giants receiver Golden Tate slammed Judge while recapping his disastrous stint with the Giants from 2019-20, which overlapped with Judge’s first year as head coach in the latter season.
“My time with the Giants was interesting,” Tate said while responding to a question asking him “What was it like playing for giants and commute to their facility,” in a video posted by X user @TommyG105.
“My last year was during the COVID year and that just sucked because we had to play about every single game with no fans in the stadium so it felt like a scrimmage, it sucked, and on top of that I had one of the Patriots descendants come on over, Joseph Judge, who thought he could remake the wheel by trying to do everything like Tom Brady and Bill Belichick and it did not fly.”
A common theme among ex-Patriots coaches is they too often try to follow the book of Belichick, with Josh McDaniels, Charlie Weis and Judge among those who have failed after leaving Foxborough.
They are often accused of trying to instill the no-nonsense, team-first mentality without having the pedigree to back it up and, of course, not having Brady to lead the way.
Tate’s remarks about Judge are even more interesting since Tate only played for Judge during the one season when it seemed the Giants made the right call in hiring the former special teams coordinator.
Judge earned strong reviews for his 2020 season, when the team employed Tate, before it all fell apart for him during the 2021 season, leading to his late-season removal.
Tate, who played his final snaps with the Giants, is making it clear he believed there were underlying problems even while Judge led the Giants to a 6-10 record.
It’s possible there is some bad blood since the Giants reduced Tate’s role that year, with the veteran tallying just 35 catches — tied for the second-fewest of his career — for 388 yards and two scores.
Tate had grabbed 49 passes for 676 yards and six touchdowns the previous year, his first with the team after signing a four-year deal worth $37.5 million.
They released him just halfway through the deal.
Judge returned to the Patriots after his Giants ouster, working under Belichick for the past two years before joining Ole Miss this offseason.