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Giants Add Joel Thomas, Aaron Wellman to Coaching Staff

Originally posted on FanNation Giants Country
By Patricia Traina | Last updated 1/16/24

New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll has filled two more vacancies on his coaching staff with the hires of Joel Thomas and Aaron Wellman.

Thomas, who has been with the Saints as their running backs coach since 2015, fills the vacancy that opened when Jeff Nixon left the club to take the Syracuse offensive coordinator role.

Thomas began his coaching career in 2000 as a graduate assistant at Purdue. He remained in various college coaching positions, at one point serving as co-offensive coordinator and running backs coach at Idaho from 2004-2005 and as associate head coach for offense and running backs coach at Washington in 2012.

He got his first NFL coaching job with the Saints in 2015 as their running back coach, a position he's held now under former head coach Sean Payton and current head coach Dennis Allen. Before that, he had served as a training camp intern with the Saints in 2012 and the Steelers in 2008.

The Port Angeles, Washington native has overseen a Saints running game that, between 2015 and 2018, led the NFL in total rushing touchdowns with 82.

Wellman is about to embark on his second stint with the Giants after spending the last four years at the University of Indiana, where he was the school's senior assistant athletic director for football performance.

Wellman began his strength and conditioning career as a graduate assistant at Indiana University (1996-98). He then spent three years as the Hoosiers' full-time assistant strength and conditioning coach.

From there, he had stints at Michigan State University, Michigan, Notre Dame, San Diego State, and Ball State University.

Wellman was hired by head coach Ben McAdoo in 2016 to revolutionize the Giants' strength and conditioning program after the Giants repeatedly were among the most injured teams in the NFL.

Avg games lost d/t injury rank:

2009- 19th
2010- 22nd
2011- 26th
2012- 25th
2013- 32nd
2014- 32nd
2015- 32nd
2016- 7th
2017- 25th
2018- 8th
2019- 17th
2020- 25th
2021- 27th

Since 09 the LEAST amount of games lost d/t injury in 1 year was 51.2 in 2018, the MOST was 144.6 in 2013
— Pratik Patel (@PratikxPatel) November 23, 2022

In 2015, the year before Wellman arrived, the Giants were the 32nd-ranked team in average games lost to injury. In 2016, his first year with the team, that standing improved to seventh, as the Giants went 11-5 and made their first postseason appearance since 2011, their best mark since they went 12-4 in 2008.

For more on Aaron Wellman's philosophies, see this old video from his first stint with the Giants.

This article first appeared on FanNation Giants Country and was syndicated with permission.

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