Sources on where Giants stand with Joe Judge, who still has his job — for now

The season is over, his boss has retired, year-end meetings have already been held, and Joe Judge is still the Giants head coach.

At least for now.

The embattled second-year coach has apparently survived Black Monday, despite the Giants’ miserable, 4-13 season and his ugly 10-23 record as head coach, but it’s still not clear exactly how much longer he’ll be able to hold on. Things appeared to be trending toward Judge returning in 2022 as he met with Giants co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch on Monday afternoon, according to a team source. But there may be more meetings in the coming days before any final decision is made.

The reason for putting Judge in limbo is because the owners have a lot of questions that need to be answered after one of the most disappointing seasons their franchise has had. They undoubtedly want to hear Judge’s plan for turning this mess around. And according to one source, they also want to hear Judge’s plans for what they may insist will be a complete overhaul of his offensive staff.

There’s also the wild card of the Giants’ search for a new general manager after the “retirement” of GM Dave Gettleman became official on Monday, after four years and a dismal record of 19-46. There is a chance the Giants may wait until a new GM is in place before making a final decision on Judge, who still has three years left on his five-year contract, so that the new GM has a voice in the process. However, that could put the Giants in a bind if they decide to move on from Judge since their search would be weeks behind the five other teams that are currently looking for a new coach, too.

Also, traditionally, Mara has always had final say when it comes to hiring and firing head coaches. So most seem to believe he will decide Judge’s ultimate fate before a new GM is in place.

In the meantime, the 40-year-old Judge went about his business on Monday as if nothing had changed. He met with his coaching staff in the morning and told them he expected to be back, according to a source, though they are bracing for the likelihood that many of them won’t be back with him. He also met with his players and his message was focused on the future, though several players said Judge did not say directly that he would return.

Judge also spoke briefly with Mara in the morning, according to a source, which led to the longer, more official meeting in the afternoon.

Judge’s sales pitch to his bosses was surely much of what he laid out in some of his recent, lengthy, news-conference answers. He has spoken of the “culture” he has built, and how much better the program is than the one he inherited where players, he said, “tapped out” late in the season. He believes that with better and healthier players the wins won’t be far behind.

That’s a hard argument to make based on recent results, though, including a season-ending, six-game losing streak in which the Giants were outscored by an average of 27-9.

Judge also wanted to have a hand in the GM search, according to a source, but that was an impossible sell to the Giants owners given his perilous situation. He had made a push for them to promote assistant GM Kevin Abrams into Gettleman’s job, a source confirmed, because the two have worked well together and Abrams presumably wants to keep Judge as head coach. But now it’s not even clear if Abrams, who was once thought to be next-in-line, will even get an interview for the GM job.

At least one other candidate with ties to Judge is on the Giants’ shortlist -- Monti Ossenfort, the director of player personnel for the Tennessee Titans who was the director of college scouting when Judge was an assistant coach in New England. He was one of four candidates the Giants requested permission to interview on Monday, joining Bills assistant GM Joe Schoen, Titans VP of player personnel Ryan Cowden, and Chiefs executive director of player personnel Ryan Poles.

Abrams also will be interviewed for the job, according to the source. He is likely to be the only serious internal candidate for the job.

Whether the new GM will get to help choose a coach will depend on whether Judge can convince his bosses to let him keep the job he has held since January 2020. At the time, Mara insisted he was in it for the long-term with his rookie coach and said, “It’s up to us to show a little more patience with this coach than perhaps we have over the last few years.”

If the Giants did fire Judge, it would be the third straight head coach they’ve dismissed after just two seasons. And a team source insisted that lack of stability is a factor in the decision about Judge, since Mara doesn’t want to be viewed as making a rash, knee-jerk decision again.

Mara, in fact, didn’t want to even consider firing Judge at all as recently as a few weeks ago. He insisted his support for Judge was as strong as ever in his last public comments to the New York Post on Oct. 24. And on Dec. 13, SNY reported that Judge appeared safe because, a source said, Mara “thinks he’s found his (Bill) Belichick or (Bill) Parcells, and there’s just no way he gives up on another coach this soon.”

But the tide began to turn against Judge the last few weeks, especially since Jan. 2 when the Giants lost 29-3 to a bad Bears team in Chicago. His job security really became a question after he became a punchline for his 11-minute, rambling, postgame rant about the culture he’s building, the mess he inherited and how “this ain’t some clown-show organization.”

That news conference, and his battered public image, was clearly going to be a topic during his meetings with Mara, too. His explanations and his answers to ownership’s pointed questions might determine how long these discussions last, and whether he emerges with his job when they end.