Oft maligned, Coughlin has earned his spot among NFL’s elite

By Connor Byrne  |   Monday, February 04, 2008  |  Comments( 1 )

New York Giants
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At this time one short year ago, fans of the New York Giants were hoping that head coach Tom Coughlin's days at the team's helm were winding down. Although Coughlin was coming off his second straight playoff season after his third year as New York's coach, Big Blue finished 2006-07 just 8-8 and was vanquished in the first round of the postseason by Jeff Garcia-led Philadelphia.

Entering this past year, at the forefront of a team that didn't appear all that impressive on paper and ended the previous regular season on a 2-6 skid, Coughlin was somewhat of a lame duck. The Giants had given him a one-year contract extension, but the feeling was that 2007 would be a do-or-die campaign for Coughlin. And after the Giants began the season with consecutive losses, the noose around Coughlin's job began to tighten that much more.

But the 61-year-old managed to show his most biting critics (the Giants' fans) that he is among the NFL's top head coaches. He rallied his team to a 10-4 regular-season finish and helped it roll through the playoffs with four straight road victories (New York was a cumulative 11-1 away from the Meadowlands), including an enormous Super Bowl upset over the supposedly unbeatable Patriots -- who went into last Sunday's game shooting for immortality but left as the most pedestrian 18-win team in football history.

During the Giants' 17-14 triumph over New England, Coughlin took a page out of the books of Weeb Ewbank (1969 New York Jets) and Herb Brooks (America's 1980 Olympic hockey team) and managed to outcoach the enemy on the other sideline while rallying his own players to the point where they believed fully in themselves. Though Coughlin's all-time great counterpart, Bill Belichick, walked into Glendale, Ariz., receiving all the praise; in the end it was Coughlin whose staff, game plan and players earned the victory; quite simply, the Giants' coaches (Coughlin, coordinators Steve Spagnuolo and Kevin Gilbride, among others) and players outdid the Patriots' Hall of Fame-bound curmudgeon of a sideline general and his team.

In 13 total years as a head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars and Giants, Coughlin has amassed 103 regular-season wins and an above-.500 playoff record, now including a Super Bowl title. With a few more seasons of double-digit wins, it's not out of the realm that Coughlin could stunningly end up in Canton, Ohio, with a bust in the Pro Football Hall of Fame alongside Belichick, his onetime staff mate with the Giants nearly 20 years ago.

Now that he's atop the NFL mountain, expect Coughlin to receive a long-term, big-money contract extension from the Giants.

From lame duck to golden goose in one five-month season. Not bad.

*E-mail: cbyrne@realfootball365.com.
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