Rick Gosselin, a 47-year veteran of analyzing special teams, releases a yearly review and ranks the 32 units across the NFL.

Gosselin's system has long been a highly-respected system to grade out the league's specialists. Teams are ranked in 22 kicking-game categories and assigned points according to their standing -- one for best, 32 for worst.

For their efforts in the 2019 season, the Giants finished ranked as Gosselin's seventh-best special teams unit with 314 total points. That's an improvement from the year prior, as Gosselin's system tabbed the Giants 15th in special teams grouping.

While the G-men have a new head coach this offseason in Joe Judge, things will remain status quo on special teams. Judge, who was previously the Patriots' special teams coordinator before coming to New York, made one of his first coaching staff decisions via Thomas McGaughey. Judge quickly decided to keep McGaughey on as his special teams coordinator, who was a holdover from Pat Shurmur's staff.

"I've known T-Mac from going against him as well as being in the business and I have a good relationship with him professionally and personally," Judge said, via team release. "I have a lot of respect for him as a coach."

To the team's website, McGaughey said his and Judge's special teams philosophies are similar, likely making the decision for Judge an easy one.

"Our philosophies match up perfectly," McGaughey said. "That's one of the reasons I wanted to come back. We've coached against each others for years. He was at Bama when I was at LSU, and obviously being in New England over the years we've coached against each other when I was with the Jets. . . It was a good mesh."

Of the 22 individual categories in Gosselin's system, the Giants finished in the top five in two. Those include punt return yards with a 10.5 average (third) and kickoff coverage yards with a 18.8 yard average allowed (second).

Popular in the Community