Welcome to Cole country
Giants’ Joe Judge stumbled upon a player that might make even Patriots’ Bill Belichick jealous
Until (or unless) Joe Judge builds a winning team with the Giants, it’ll always be mentioned that he’s one branch on the Bill Belichick coaching tree, which is a tree without a whole lot of success stories. In some ways, Judge has avoided the stereotype, employing some of Belichick’s methods while also cultivating his own unique personality and approach — something other disciples failed to do.
But on Sunday night, Judge did the most Belichick-ian thing of his young head coaching career: He played a wide receiver at cornerback ... and didn’t even tell him it was going to happen until the day before the game.
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Matt Cole wasn’t even on the Giants at the start of the month. The claimed him off waivers from the Jets on Aug. 8, and now it seems Judge might’ve stumbled on a jack-of-all-trades player — a staple of some of the best Belichick Patriots teams — with the unique ability to play in all three phases. He’s legitimately fighting for a spot on the 53-man roster, and he just might get there.
Especially if he keeps doing what he did both last week against the Jets and in Aug. 22’s 17-13 loss to the Browns.
“I’m proud of the way Matt competed,” Judge said. “He’s been a guy since he’s got here, whether it’s special teams, offense or defense, he just says yes sir, then he goes out there and plays at 100%.”
Here’s the story: The Giants were light on defensive backs both due to injuries and because Judge planned to rest most of his starters.
Enter Cole.
On short notice, he learned as much as he could and was thrown into the fire — he played 25 snaps at outside cornerback, and didn’t allow any catches. On the his first drive — the first snaps Cole had played at cornerback since high school — Browns quarterback Kyle Lauletta didn’t even throw it to his area, instead targeting cornerback Sam Beal, who has played the position his whole life.
Lauletta eventually started targeting his area — all unsuccessfully. And to top it off, the 5-foot-10, 197-pound Cole tackled Browns tight end Connor Davis (6-foot-8, 271 pounds) to force a fourth down.
“I do not want to toot my own horn, but I do not think a receiver caught the ball on my side of the field,” Cole said. “I think I did pretty good. I just stepped up and just filled in a spot.”
The 24-year-old Cole had already made an impression on Judge a week earlier when he tapped a Riley Dixon punt at the Jets goal line, allowing a teammate to down the ball inside the 10-yard-line. He had a special teams tackle as a gunner in punt coverage on Sunday too.
But his teammates were more impressed with how he played on defense.
“That was really amazing,’’ safety Julian Love said. “He
was really aggressive, he was putting his hat on the ball. All the respect for what he did for us. We were fired up, he wasn’t playing passive and in a situation like that it’s easy to fall back. But he went at it.’’
Running back Devontae Booker said he was confused when he looked out and saw a No. 83 — usually a wide receiver’s number — playing cornerback.
“It was crazy,” Booker said.
Working against Cole in his quest to make the final roster: He only has actually played seven snaps in the preseason at his natural position, wide receiver. And it’s already going to be hard to make it at that position with Kenny Golladay, Sterling Shepard, Darius Slayton and Kadarius Toney locked in, C.J. Board looking like a safe bet to make it, John Ross (if healthy) being around and the duo of David Sills and Dante Pettis both getting
significant offensive snaps.
But don’t think any of that would deter Judge from keeping Cole around.
The Giants coach speaks often about how most players — especially ones fighting for roster spots — need to play multiple roles if they want to stick around.
How about three roles?
“I’ve had experience doing that before with receivers in training camp and guys that have stuck around,” Judge said. “One thing that impressed us is that he didn’t blink.”
When Cole brought up the fact that Lauletta didn’t complete any catches to his coverage area, a reporter asked if that meant his nickname was “Cole Island.”
He didn’t blink again.
“Cole World,” he said.