Giant Football Blog

Should Coughlin be worried?

-Bill Cowher was on the Jets' coaching short list last year, but he removed himself from consideration when Woody Johnson declined to cut short his vacation abroad and meet face-to-face. They never even spoke on the phone.

But might Cowher, who has been spending his football weekends in New York the last three years in the CBS studio, be taking up permanent residence around here in 2011 as the Giants next coach?

Cowher wants the Giants job, former Steelers RB Jerome Bettis told Sirius XM this past week. Now Cowher is too sensitive to coaches to be publicly campaigning for jobs, especially Tom Coughlin's job. They spent a lot of time together last summer on the NFL-USO Coaches Tour of the Persian Gulf visiting troops.

But Bettis may be on to something. If the Giants have another bad season in 2010 and Coughlin gets fired, Cowher would give the Giants one Super Bowl winner replacing another. Continue

Tom the motivator

Michael Strahan, the emotional heart and soul of the Giants' championship team two years ago, started the "stomp you out" routine during the 2007 season and it has remained a constant in their pregame ritual.

He would gather his teammates around him in what he called the "family circle" on the field shortly before the pregame stretch, leap into the air, jump up and down and slam his foot as he screamed, "We're going to stomp them out."

It would fire up his guys, who were then so jacked up they were ready to run through a wall. Strahan's act became the battle cry, especially during the amazing Super Bowl run. Continue

So how much goodwill does Tom Coughlin have?

Tom Coughlin was given a free pass last year when the Giants fell apart down the stretch, even though for most of the season it looked as if they were good enough to repeat as Super Bowl champions.

The free pass is not a lifetime pass.

The coach has to be held accountable for this year's collapse.

He got off easy last year because the slump coincided with Plaxico Burress shooting himself. Coughlin had a month before the playoffs to figure out how to compensate for the loss, but the Giants didn't put up much resistance in losing at home to the Eagles in the divisional round. Continue

Buck stops with Coughlin

Enough with the second-guessing. Enough with the search for a scapegoat. If you want to blame someone, blame Tom Coughlin.

That's what the Giants' coach said Wednesday afternoon in an unsolicited rant at the start of his post-practice press conference. Apparently bothered by criticism of both his offensive coordinator and quarterback after the Giants' 21-20 loss to San Diego on Sunday, Coughlin made it clear that he wants the heat to be placed on him instead.

"I thought it was perfectly clear, but let me express it so no longer does anyone else receive any type of blame," Coughlin said. "The blame goes right here. That's all." Continue

Play calling in question for Giants

Tom Coughlin often bristles when challenged in his day-after chats with reporters about certain calls or decisions made during the previous day’s game. But there are also plenty of times when he concedes things could have been handled differently.

Monday, when asked about the possibility of throwing for the end zone instead of a screen pass, two running plays and settling for a field goal — not a game-clinching touchdown — late in the loss to the Chargers, Coughlin didn’t put up a fight at all.

“Well, there’s no doubt,” the Giants’ coach said of the series that began with a first-and-goal from the San Diego 4-yard line but was immediately backed up by a holding penalty. “You have a sense at that point in time the game is there to be won and a touchdown would have done that. I wouldn’t argue with you on that at all.” Continue

Coughlin lays it on the line

It's now or never.

With the Giants reeling after a three-game losing streak, Tom Coughlin told his players Wednesday that their game against the San Diego Chargers on Sunday "is a one-game season for us." And judging by their response, that's a reality they already faced.

"You don't always like to put too much pressure on one game, but I think in this scenario that's kind of what you have to do," said QB Eli Manning "We need to get a win going into the bye week and get back to playing our style of football."

"I can't say it's a 'do or die,'" added LB Danny Clark. "But it's a situation where the sense of urgency is now." Continue

Woodson spilling guts to Skins?

The question to Tom Coughlin Monday was about whether he was worried former Giants quarterback Andre' Woodson, who signed with the Redskins as a member of their practice squad, would reveal any key information about his old team.

"You mean, 'Why is he in Washington right now?' " the coach said with a laugh. "It's pretty obvious why he's in Washington. There's no question that's what's going on. We'll see what transpires. It works both ways a little bit."

The Giants don't seem to do a whole lot of that - at least not during the Coughlin era. They've certainly signed some players who have been with division rivals, but they don't really bring freshly-cut guys in the week before they play their former teams.

"I've been a part of it. I've seen it done," Coughlin said with a wry smile. "The guy doesn't get in the door two seconds and he's in a classroom getting grilled. But not of late (has he done it)." Continue

Back to basics for Giants and Coughlin

There have been plenty of times in Tom Coughlin's five-plus years with the Giants when he's been hard on his team in a postgame press conference and then eased up in the following day's session with the media.

This was not one of those occasions.

One day after questioning the players' focus and saying he was "embarrassed" by Saturday night's 17-3 preseason loss to the Bears, Coughlin had an equally strong message for his players, whom he clearly believes have a higher opinion of themselves than is warranted right now.

"We need to focus on improving as a football team and, quite frankly, stop listening to all the media tell us where we are good and where we aren't good and all of that stuff," the coach said on a conference call with reporters. "Just get our team on track, knowing full well we don't have a lot of time to do this. This having taken place right now, I hope it's a wake-up call." Continue

Coughlin visits Iraq over July 4th weekend

The soldiers expressed their gratitude over and over to the NFL coaches who made the trip to Iraq.

"They kept thanking us," said the Tennessee Titans' Jeff Fisher. "We kept thanking them."

Fisher, the Giants' Tom Coughlin, the Baltimore Ravens' John Harbaugh, former Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher and former Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Jon Gruden are taking part in the first NFL-USO coaches tour over the Fourth of July weekend.

A world they knew only through the distant glimpses of news reports turned very real for the coaches as they met with hundreds of soldiers in three cities in a long first day Thursday. In a phone interview from Baghdad, Cowher recalled talking to military members on their second or third deployment who described how much the bombs and casualties have decreased from several years ago. Continue

Coughlin to visit troops

Tom Coughlin has spoken often about his admiration and respect for U.S. troops serving overseas. Now he's going to get a chance to tell them himself.

Coughlin will be part of the NFL's inaugural USO Coaches Tour, which will head to the war zones later this month. He'll be joined by Titans coach Jeff Fisher, Ravens coach John Harbaugh and former NFL coaches Bill Cowher and Jon Gruden on a trip that will likely take him through both Afghanistan and Iraq.

"I have always had great respect for those who served," Coughlin said. "In my time, we had the draft. Today, these people who are in Iraq and Afghanistan are volunteers. To spend time with them is to be able to sense the intelligence and the passion of these people and to stand in admiration and awe of this combination." Continue