Tag: George Young

Atlanta’s Rich McKay ‘really jacked’ Giants’ George Young finally made Hall of Fame

Atlanta Falcons president and CEO Rich McKay is “really jacked” that late New York Giants GM George Young finally made the Hall of Fame.

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Modern day NFL executives have role models, too. In the case of Atlanta Falcons president and CEO Rich McKay, it’s former New York Giants general manager George Young.

Young was finally elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame last year as part of the league’s Centennial class. No one was more excited than McKay, the son of former Tampa Bay Bucs and USC coach John McKay, and a long-time executive in the NFL.

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“I am really jacked,” McKay said on a recent “Eye Test for Two” podcast on fullpressradio.com. “I didn’t like George. I loved George. I considered George a friend, a mentor. He was a special guy for me. I have so many memories of George, but what I loved about George was … incredible how his path got him to be, in my mind, one of those founding fathers of the NFL.

“And you say: How is that possible? He wasn’t there for the first 100 years. No, but he was there at a critical time of the league. And he did so much for the game.”

Many have echoed McKay’s sentiments regarding Young, who is credited with not only the monumental task of turning around the New York Giants in the 1980s, but creating the front office structure that many organizations have gone on to model.

Young was a five-time NFL Executive of the Year and his work with the Baltimore Colts, Miami Dolphins and Giants all resulted in championships.

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Giants’ George Young and 8 other Hall of Famers to be honored with TV special

Late New York Giants general manager George Young will honored during 2021 NFL draft weekend.

Former New York Giants general manager George Young and eight other new members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame will receive special recognition with a TV program on the weekend of the NFL draft.

From the PFHOF:

The Pro Football Hall of Fame will celebrate the careers and contributions of nine men – members of either the Centennial Class of 2020 or the Class of 2021 – during a 90-minute special that will air Saturday, May 1 on NFL Network and Tuesday, May 4 on ESPN2.

Those to be honored posthumously during “Hall of Famer Forever: Enshrinement Special” are Centennial Class of 2020 members Bobby Dillon, Winston Hill, Alex Karras, Steve Sabol, Duke Slater, Mac Speedie, Ed Sprinkle and George Young, as well as Bill Nunn from the Class of 2021.

Dillon, Hill, Karras, Nunn, Sabol, Slater, Speedie, Sprinkle and Young also will be recognized this summer during their respective Enshrinements – the Centennial Class of 2020 on Saturday, Aug. 7 and the Class of 2021 on Sunday, Aug. 8.

Young was the Giants’ general manager from 1979-1997, leading them out of the “wilderness era” to two Super Bowl championships and changing the culture of the franchise.

Young was named NFL Executive of the Year five times and also won a Super Bowl and an NFL championship as an assistant coach with the Baltimore Colts from 1968-1974.

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Former Giants coach Ray Perkins dies at 79

Former New York Giants head coach Ray Perkins, who also coached at Alabama, has died at the age of 79.

Ray Perkins, the first head coach hired by George Young when he took over the as general manager of the New York Giants in 1979, has passed away. His family confirmed his death to the website AL.com. He was 79.

Perkins was born one day before the attack on Pearl Harbor — December 6, 1941 — in Petal, Mississippi and played his college football at Alabama as a wide receiver under legendary coach Paul “Bear” Bryant. He earned SEC Player of the Year honors and was named an All-American in 1966. He went on to play in the NFL for the Baltimore Colts from 1967-1971, where he played in two Super Bowls.

Upon his retirement as a player, Perkins went into the coaching ranks where his most notable achievement would be the man who replaced Bryant at Alabama in 1983.

Perkins began his coaching career as an assistant at Mississippi State and moved on to the professional ranks in New England and San Diego before Young, who knew Perkins for their days in Baltimore, hired him to help turn around the Giants, who had jus two winning seasons since 1963 and had not qualified for the playoffs during that stretch.

Perkins went 6-10 in his first season and 4-12 in his second. His disciplinary style was questioned consistently as the team’s results and fortunes were still in the dumpster. That changed in 1981, when the Giants drafted Lawrence Taylor and posted a 9-7 record, qualifying them for the postseason as a wild card. They defeated the Philadelphia Eagles in the wild card round before losing to the eventual Super Bowl champion San Francisco 49ers in the divisional round.

Perkins came back for the 1982 season, which was marred by a long work stoppage. The Giants went 4-5 in the abbreviated season and failed to make the playoffs. Perkins left after the season to head back to Alabama to take the head coaching vacancy left by Bryant’s death in January of 1983.

Giant fans will remember Perkins as the man who got them back into respectable NFL circles after 18 years of what is now known as the “wilderness years.” He is also responsible for the hiring coaches Bill Parcells, Bill Belichick, Ron Erhardt and Romeo Crennel, the backbone of the Giants’ great staff of the 1980s.

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Giants whiffed on Bill Parcells’ replacement in 1991

The New York Giants could not have gotten it more wrong in 1991, choosing Ray Handley over Bill Belichick.

With the lack of any hard news in sports these days there’s a lot of “what-if” articles going around. Paul Schwartz, who has covered the New York Giants for the New York Post since 1994, has been publishing quite a few of these pieces and one in particular gets me every time.

Why didn’t the Giants hire Bill Belichick in 1991 when Bill Parcells left?

“Parcells left in May following the Super Bowl-winning 1990 season,” writes Schwartz.  “But before that, GM George Young had shown favoritism for Ray Handley, the running backs coach and clock-management guy, over Belichick, the defensive coordinator who Young thought cursed too much and was a bit of an oddball. Belichick left in February, leaving Handley to be named head coach, and the rest is very sad Giants history. Belichick went on to have some success, it seems.”

George Young made a lot of winning decisions in his long tenure as the general manager of the Giants. He also made a bunch of poor ones. None was as poor as the decision to hire Ray Handley, who was as ill-quipped off the field as he was on it to handle the position. He was fired after two seasons and replaced by Dan Reeves.

To be fair, Bill Belichick was not the Bill Belichick we know today. He was younger, brasher and perhaps not ready for a head coaching gig. Hence his hiring and firing as the head coach of the Cleveland Browns in the mid-1990s.

But Belichick would learn from that, and quickly. In his next — and current head coaching job — with the New England Patriots, Belichick has won nine AFC Championships and six Super Bowls. And he’s not done.

Handley never coached or worked in football again. The Giants eventually recovered, but it took nine years to get back to the Super Bowl and the hiring of another figure off the Parcells coaching tree, Tom Coughlin, to guide them to their next world championship.

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Giants’ George Young finally, deservedly headed to the Hall of Fame

Late New York Giants executive George Young is finally and most deservedly headed to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Rejoice, New York Giants fans! It has finally happened! The late George Young is finally and deservedly headed to Canton, Ohio to forever enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

“George is certainly very deserving of being in the Hall of Fame,” co-owner John Mara said in a team statement. “My only regret is that he’s not around to enjoy this. He took our organization from being in last place and not having a lot of respect around the league, to being a Super Bowl Champion. He made every football department in our organization more professional. He changed the reputation and level of respect that our team had for the better. He improved us in so many different ways. He certainly is a very deserving Hall of Famer. Again, I only wish he could be around to enjoy this moment. It’s long overdue. All of us here are very happy that at long last, he will be enshrined in Canton, Ohio.

“I think this would have meant a lot to George because he always had a great appreciation for the history of the game and he had so much respect for people who were enshrined in the Hall. I think this would have meant the world to him, even though he may not have admitted to that. I think this would have had a huge impact on him. Again, I’m really sorry he’s not around to enjoy it.”

Young served as the Giants’ general manager from 1979-97 after serving four years as the Director of player personnel for the Miami Dolphins. Prior to that, he was the assistant coach of the Baltimore Ravens from 1968-1974.

During his time as GM of the Giants, Young won Executive of the Year a remarkable five times (1984, 1986, 1990, 1993, 1997). He is also a three-time Super Bowl champion (V, XXI, XXV) and one-time NFL champion (1968).

“George Young’s career is the very definition of a Hall of Famer,” said Ernie Accorsi, who succeeded him as general manager in 1998. “From assistant coach to scout to general manager to trusted advisor to Commissioner Tagliabue, every step of the way there was excellence. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of George or something I learned from him. The only bittersweet part is that he’s not here. But as the great Beano Cook would say, ‘If the Gipper knew, George knows.’

“He was my best friend in the National Football League for 31 years. There were not too many days, certainly when we were together every day, but there weren’t too many days, even when I was in Cleveland, that we didn’t talk.

“It was so great being able to come back to work for him (on the Giants). I was working for the Orioles. I don’t know if I would have ever gotten back into the National Football League if it wasn’t for George.”

Young enters Canton as part of a unique centennial class aimed at celebrating the league’s 100th anniversary.

George Young among finalists for Pro Football Hall of Fame

Former New York Giants GM George Young is among the finalists for the 2020 Hall of Fame.

Former New York Giants general manager George Young is among the finalists in the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Centennial Class of 2020 as a Senior Contributor.

Young, after successful stints with the Baltimore Colts and Miami Dolphins, took over the reins of a hopelessly lost New York Giants franchise at the behest of then NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle in 1979.

The Giants had been mired in an 18-year stretch of losing and playoff-less seasons amid a longstanding feud between the team’ two owners – Wellington Mara and his nephew, Tim.

Under Young’s nearly two-decade run as GM, the Giants’ fortunes would change dramatically. He hired coaches such as Bill Parcells, Bill Belichick and Tom Coughlin and drafted some of the greatest players to ever wear Giant Blue: Lawrence Taylor, Phil Simms, Carl Banks, Mark Bavaro, Jesse Armstead, Michael Strahan, Joe Morris, Leonard Marshall, Amani Toomer, Tiki Barber and Jeff Hostetler to name a few.

Young has been on the board before but has failed to garner enough votes to stick. This time around, with the league expanding the field for this special class to honor their 100th season, Young could finally get his well-deserved nod.

Young left the Giants after 1997 season, handing over the keys to Ernie Accorsi. He went on to assume the role of Senior Vice President of Football Operations for the NFL in 1998. He passed away in 2001.

George Young, Dan Reeves named finalists for Hall of Fame’s Class of 2020 Centennial Slate

Ex-New York Giants, George Young and Dan Reeves, are among the finalists for the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Class of 2020 Centennial Slate.

Former New York Giants general manager George Young and head coach Dan Reeves were named finalists for the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Class of 2020 Centennial Slate.

Of the above group, 10 Seniors, three (3) Contributors and two (2) Coaches will be elected to the Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2020 along with five Modern-Era Players who will be elected from 15 finalists by the full Selection Committee on “Selection Saturday,” the eve of Super Bowl LIV in Miami.

The list of the Modern-Era Player finalists will be announced on Jan. 2, 2020.

Young had a 33-year career in the NFL, first with the Baltimore Colts before moving on to the Miami Dolphins and the Giants where he built Big Blue into a league power, winning two Super Bowls before taking a job in the league office.

Reeves was the longtime head coach of the Denver Broncos, leading them to three losing Super Bowl appearances before latching on with the Giants from 1993-96. He finished his career with the Atlanta Falcons.

Of all the people who are genuinely deserving, Young has been on the outside looking in for entirely too long. It’s time he is enshrined forever.

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