Some details emerge on Joe Judge's new role with Patriots, Bill Belichick
BOSTON -- Last week, some news broke that Joe Judge was getting a promotion of sorts in New England, serving in an assistant head coach role alongside Bill Belichick.
Considering Judge was coming off a season as quarterbacks coach when the quarterback and the offense performed poorly, that news was met with many questions.
Some of those questions are sure to remain, but some details did trickle out of the NFL owners' meetings in Arizona, with Greg Bedard of Boston Sports Journal clarifying that Judge will "definitely" be the assistant head coach.
Bedard then answered a question from someone asking if the initial report said that Judge would be assistant "to" the head coach.
That news means that Judge is most certainly getting a promotion, as he's now set to serve as Belichick's right-hand man for however the head coach sees fit.
Belichick had an assistant head coach for his first 14 seasons in New England, with Dante Scarnecchia serving in that role in addition to coaching the offensive line from 2000 until his first retirement in 2013. When Scarnecchia returned to the team in 2016, he did so without the assistant head coach title.
Belichick himself was the assistant head coach in his lone season in New England under Bill Parcells back in 1996, and he kept that title alongside Parcells for three seasons with the New York Jets, from 1997-99.
Judge, 41, got his NFL start with the Patriots in 2012 as a special teams assistant for Belichick, after working in that role for the previous three seasons under Nick Saban at Alabama. In 2015, after three seasons as an assistant, Judge became the special teams coordinator in New England, a role he held through 2019. In that 2019 season, he also added wide receivers coach to his responsibilities. In 2020, he landed the New York Giants' head coaching job, but he didn't hold it for long. Judge was fired after two seasons, going 10-23 in New York, before returning to New England last year to coach the offense full-time. The offense -- and quarterback Mac Jones -- struggled mightily with Judge and Matt Patricia running the offense, and one report indicated major issues between Judge and the players plaguing the team throughout the year.
The initial report last week indicated that Judge will be working with special teams in this new role, but the title of assistant head coach means he'll have much more responsibility.
