Is It Time For Coughlin To Go Yet?

[Mr. P]

 

Tom Coughlin must go.

 

Hey, some clown is going to say it this year. I want to be the first clown.

 

I know I'm a little early. The New York Giants haven't played a regular season game yet—they open Wednesday against the Dallas Cowboys. I also know the Giants are defending Super Bowl champions. They've won two of the past five Super Bowls, a rate better than any team in football.

 

Still Coughlin must go. Right?

 

Don't we do this foolish routine at least once a year? The Giants have a few stumbles and the vultures start swirling, claiming the coach is over the hill. Too old-school. Players can't relate. You know those hip young coaches who walk around, slapping high fives and looking like they want to take everyone out for ice cream socials and go-kart rides?

 

Coughlin doesn't look like that. Coughlin looks agitated and exasperated, like he wants to kick all of us off his lawn.

 

So Coughlin must go.

 

It's the silliest ritual in football. Fans of the New York Football Giants should be thrilled I'm calling for Coughlin's job. By now, isn't this good luck?

 

Happened before 2007. Happened in 2011. The mob demands: Coughlin Must Go. Let's get Bill Cowher! The mob starts looking for Cowher's jet to land in Newark.

 

Then Coughlin and the Giants ignore everybody, and plow straight to another Super Bowl.

 

It's the most beautiful 'Shut Up' in sports.

 

You'll never hear Coughlin personalize it this way. The guy has the weirdest philosophy: It's not about him. Isn't that hilarious? Not about him. Hasn't he watched a football game lately? It's all about the coaches—every coach is a savant and intellectual, a brilliant tactician and motivator.

 

But Coughlin sometimes gets ignored on The Big All-Time Coach List. What a joke. Maybe it's because of his fiery days in Jacksonville, where he started so strong but ran out of steam. Maybe it's because he doesn't have a clever schtick. Bill Belichick can mumble into oatmeal and get called a genius. Bill Parcells insulted people and they'd laugh like they'd been zinged by Don Rickles.

 

Coughlin's not like that. He doesn't pretend he's Football Yoda. He's not trying to smother anyone with personality or sound bites. His most eccentric habit is showing up five minutes early for everything. What a wild man! I can remember standing in a news conference last winter on a shivery early evening in Green Bay, after the Giants had stunned the 15-1 Packers in their Lambeau living room. It was the shock of the playoffs. Coughlin was asked if the Giants were now a dangerous team.

 

"I think we're a dangerous team," he said, looking a little uncomfortable with the public pronouncement.

 

That's as edgy as Coughlin gets. Then the Giants went out and stopped the Niners in San Francisco. Then they beat the Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI, once again denying Belichick and Tom Brady a fourth ring.

 

Guess they were pretty dangerous.

 

Some days it seems Coughlin can't even win in his own backyard. The Giants share a bunk-bed in New Jersey with the New York Jets, who may be underachievers on the field but are All-Pros at moving their mouths. The Jets are coached by Rex Ryan, who is everything a casting agent would want in a football coach: loud, brash, smart-alecky. Ryan talks like he's in a Bruce Willis movie, and the Jets bask—and shrink—in the attention generated by their coach. You may have seen they recently signed the World's Most Famous Backup Quarterback. He's on the cover of GQ.

 

Tom Coughlin has never been on the cover of GQ. Tom Coughlin might not even get on the cover of Tom Coughlin Monthly, if such a magazine existed—they might go with Jim Harbaugh instead. Belichick has won three NFL Coach of the Year awards but he'd surely give them all back to have beaten Coughlin in one of their two Super Bowl matchups.

 

You don't hear Coughlin howl about the slights. He stays low to the ground, tunes out the chatter, avoids the headlines. You might not know much about the Jay Fund, the charity Coughlin helped launch in memory of one of his former players at Boston College, Jay McGillis, who died of leukemia in 1992.

 

Since its creation, the Jay Fund has given more than $4 million in assistance to families with kids diagnosed with cancer. Last June Coughlin and his players hosted 30 kids and their families to the Giants' training facility, letting them try on helmets and shoulder pads and hit the practice field and the weight room. Oh, and there was an ice cream social, too.

 

This year the Jay Fund will offer families not just grants but financial coaching—how to budget, how to organize, how stay afloat when a family must battle cancer.

 

Financial coaching is not flashy. It's just discipline that makes a lot of sense.

 

Kind of like Coughlin.

 

So go ahead, fly off the handle, pound the table. Let the Giants lose two or three painful games and demand that Coughlin get sacked.

 

Coughlin must go! Couglin must go!

 

Say it all you want. The Giants ignore the noise. Tom Coughlin isn't going anywhere. And he shouldn't.

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444914904577623541067067750.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coughlin is the man.

[Treehugger]

There's got to be serious consideration to putting him on the HOF ballot when he retires.

[Zelmo]

Excellent article, and I share his sentiments exactly.

 

That is why we are winning our next SB on Feb 7, 2016....some time is needed before the genuine calling for his head begins.

 

 

 

-Z

[Herc]

yeah it'll take a few late season collapses to get everyone mad again. he's probably safe for this season though

[Sephiroth]

So long as we don't have to play the Eagles or Panthers in the playoffs, we're pretty much guaranteed another ring.

[SweetZombieGsus]

I am generally patient but I was calling for Coughlin's head after the 2010 Eagles meltdown, when we went from locking up the division to missing the playoffs in 5 quarters. That and the constant 6-2 starts and subsequent collapses.

 

My reasoning was that, like the Yankees 2004-2007 with Joe Torre we were waiting for magic to come back and with the constant first round bootings it was in vain.

 

Then the magic DID return.

 

IMO he's golden, or it would take 4-5 years of Torre-like frustration before we would dare question his job again.

[fringe]

I think he'll retire before they axe him.

[Zelmo]

One year we don't win it'll be nothing. After the second year you'll start hearing the "when will it be ok to criticize Coughlin again?" rumblings. Third year the "now he's really old and out of touch and needs to go" begins. Fourth year against that backdrop, we win. Feb, 7 2016....Eli, Tuck, Coughlin (and Tynes) ride off into the sunset.

 

Book it.

 

 

 

-Z

[GorillaNJ]

I think he'll retire before they axe him.

 

I think you are right... Giants ownership is a classy bunch. I would not expect TC to stick around more then two seasons

[NeMesiS]

So long as we don't have to play the Eagles or Panthers in the playoffs, we're pretty much guaranteed another ring.

 

And the Saints... Man, those guys have our number.

[fishgutmartyr]

And the Saints... Man, those guys have our number.

 

Nah, we always seem to play them away. They're tough in the dome for everyone.

[JMFP]

I've been a pretty steady Coughlin & Eli supporter since Day 1. Coughlin owes alot of his success to Eli.....and vice versa.

 

I really think that a good coach and good QB can become a great tandem......they kind of remind me of Chuck Knoll and Terry Bradshaw.

[JMFP]

One year we don't win it'll be nothing. After the second year you'll start hearing the "when will it be ok to criticize Coughlin again?" rumblings. Third year the "now he's really old and out of touch and needs to go" begins. Fourth year against that backdrop, we win. Feb, 7 2016....Eli, Tuck, Coughlin (and Tynes) ride off into the sunset.

 

Book it.

 

-Z

 

This "hotseat" stuff always starts with the press....they are on it, spinning it, before knowledgeable fans even start to consider it. But, when you are hearing it nonstop in the press, you start to think that maybe it's you that is off.....you are being too loyal to the coach, etc., whereas everyone else (the "non homers") can see he's in over his head.

 

 

The first "hotseat" narrative: "Tom Coughlin is not a player's coach. Modern players can't relate to him. His too much of a disciplinarian."

 

The second "hotseat" narrative (after winning Super Bowl): "The first Super Bowl was due to Spags and the defense, and some flukey luck from Eli Manning. Coughlin isn't an innovative coach like Sean Payton. We need a younger, more creative guy like Gruden, or a more upbeat guy like Cowher. Eli is in his prime, they need to make the change while the window is still open."

 

The third "hotseat" narrative (to be determined....probably in 2 years). "Coughlin has been a tremendous coach, but it's time to pass the torch to a new guy."