As New York sports continue to fail miserably, Yankees fans react to the fact that the city is keeping Giants coach Joe Judge the way they kept Aaron Boone.
New York is America’s biggest market for professional sports, but its franchises don’t necessarily reflect the best of the best.
The Yankees are easily the most successful major New York sports franchise, but even they have made questionable decisions in recent history. For example, their decision to keep manager Aaron Boone — who apparently failed to motivate the Yankees past the AL Wild Card round — calls into question the Yankees’ new attitude of waiting to see through their personnel hires.
Similarly, it seems the New York Giants are taking a page out of the Yankees’ playbook in their decision to keep Giants head coach Joe Judge. The Giants finished last in their division at 4-13, following a 2020 season of 6-10. With NFL coaches like Mike Zimmer, Matt Nagy, and even Brian Flores getting the boot on Monday, it seemed only right that two losing seasons would be enough to fire Judge, but New York fans are stuck with Judge and Boone for the indefinite future.
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There is always an argument to keep a coach or manager in place to allow them to implement their philosophy, build relationships with players and personnel, and figure out how to combine the ideal strategies with the players they have.
Of course, there’s also a time to reassess when things clearly aren’t going to work, which seems to be the case with Boone and and Judge. While the Yankees did make the playoffs this season, Boone represents a milquetoast embodiment of accepting the status quo, which extends to how the Yankees have approached free agency this offseason: no big, game-changing signings that would push this team over the edge in the AL East. If anything, the Mets are the NYC team able to pull off big moves in the offseason, not the Yankees.
Judge has only gotten worse in his two seasons, and while he almost made playoffs in a pathetic NFC East playoff race, all he gives the Giants this season is two draft spots in the top ten picks.
If baseball and football prove disappointing, there’s still hope for the Knicks this season if they too can get out of their own way and improve upon their 20-21 record.