After what looked like a clear swing and miss at luring Matt Rhule to the Meadowlands, the Giants answered the Carolina Panthers' announcement this morning with their own: Joe Judge is the new head coach of Big Blue.

Not even two hours after news broke, courtesy of NFL Network's Ian Rapoport, that Rhule wasn't even making the trip to New Jersey and that the contract with Carolina was signed. What we didn't know in those moments were details prior to Rhule formally agreeing to the deal. According to Rapoport, the now-former Baylor head coach called the Giants and gave them an opportunity to match the contract he had been offered by Panthers owner David Tepper.

With three more years owed to Pat Shurmur, the thought of going seven years on their next head coach's contract was too rich for the Giants' blood and so they turned their attention to Joe Judge; the man they had most recently interviewed.

Judge has two NCAA national championships and three Super Bowls on his resume. He's worked with arguably the best head coaches at those respective levels: Nick Saban and Bill Belichick. Judge is a 38-year old with experience as the special teams assistant for Alabama and most-recently the special teams coordinator and wide receivers coach for the Patriots.

More From 104.5 THE TEAM