Tag: Tom Coughlin

Legendary Giants head coach Tom Coughlin a semifinalist for Pro Football HOF

New York Giants legendary head coach Tom Coughlin is among the 12 semifinalists for the Pro Football Hall of Fame class of 2024 in the coach/contributor category

Legendary New York Giants head coach Tom Coughlin has advanced to the next stage of Pro Football Hall of Fame consideration for the 2024 class.

On Thursday, the Pro Football Hall of Fame narrowed down the list of 31 seniors and 29 coaches and contributors to 12 semifinalists each, with Coughlin being among the latter group.

Over his 20-year head-coaching career that spanned eight seasons with the Jaguars and another 12 with the Giants, Coughlin won a pair of Super Bowls in New York in the 2007 and 2011 seasons.

He is one of 14 head coaches in the history of the NFL to win multiple Super Bowls, and nine of those are currently in the Hall of Fame. Mike Shanahan is another who has yet to be enshrined, but he is among the 12 semifinalists this year.

Coughlin will have the opportunity to become a first-ballot Hall of Famer in 2024. This after a legendary and long 50-year career in football that had him starting as a graduate assistant at Syracuse University.

He would eventually work his way up the ranks to an offensive coordinator at Syracuse in the late 1970s, and eventually a wide receivers coach in the NFL in the late 1980s, where he helped the Giants win their second-ever Super Bowl.

After that, he was a successful head coach at Boston College University. Coughlin then returned to the NFL to become the first-ever coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars where he helped them become what was considered arguably the most successful expansion team in NFL history, earning a combined 68-60 regular season record, with an even 4-4 postseason mark.

Following his successful stint with the Jaguars, Coughlin became the head coach for the Giants, where he went on to boast a 102-90 record, including a staggering 8-3 postseason record.

With Big Blue, the long-time coach struck pay dirt once again, winning two Super Bowls, both of which came against the New England Patriots and his former colleague, Bill Belichick.

Coughlin not only beat the 18-0 Patriots in Super Bowl XLII, he also became one of two coaches to beat the greatest football player of all time, Tom Brady, on the biggest stage.

Coughlin is well-deserving of his nomination, as his 20-year NFL record was 182-157 (.537).. The 182 victories are the 12th-highest total in NFL history and, along with his two rings, have cemented him as one of the greatest coaches of all time.

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Tom Coughlin one of 12 semifinalists for Hall of Fame in 2024

Former Jaguars coach and executive Tom Coughlin is one step closer to a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Former Jacksonville Jaguars coach and executive Tom Coughlin is one of 12 semifinalists to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2024 as a coach or contributor.

Coughlin, 76, was the first ever coach of the Jaguars, leading the team to the AFC Championship in the 1996 and 1999 seasons. He later spent 12 seasons as head coach of the New York Giants, winning two Super Bowls with the franchise. Coughlin then returned to Jacksonville as an executive vice president, helping to shape the team that reached the AFC Championship in the 2017 season.

The Hall of Fame picks just one finalist from the coach/contributor category each year and a subcommittee will convene on Aug. 15 to pick from the dozen semifinalists. Others in consideration besides Coughlin include Mike Holmgren, Robert Kraft, Marty Schottenheimer, Dan Reeves, and Mike Shanahan.

In 2022, former Jaguars offensive tackle Tony Boselli became the first player to ever play for the team and reach the Hall of Fame.

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7 reasons former Giants coach Tom Coughlin is deserving of Hall of Fame

Retired New York Giants head coach Tom Coughlin is more than deserving of the Pro Football Hall of Fame and here are seven reasons why.

Former New York Giants head coach Tom Coughlin was named a semifinalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in an announcement on Wednesday.

Coughlin was one of 29 individuals who will be considered for advancement in the process that will selectย 12 coach/contributors through to the next stage later this month.

Here are seven reasons why Coughlin is deserving of a bust in Canton.

Tom Coughlin heads list of 8 Giants semifinalists for Pro Football Hall of Fame

Eight former members of the New York Giants, including head coach Tom Coughlin, are among the semifinalists for Pro Football Hall of Fame.

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Four former New York Giants players, one former coach, and former head coach Tom Coughlin have been included on a list of 60 semifinalists who will advance to the next round of consideration for the Pro Football Hall of Fameโ€™s Class of 2024.

Running back Ottis ‘O.J.’ Anderson, quarterback Charlie Conerly, linebacker Carl Banks, and defensive back Everson Walls will be among a group considered to be among 12 Seniors and 12 Coach/Contributors advancing to the final stage.

Late Giants head coach Dan Reeves, a two-time AP NFL Coach of the Year, is also a semifinalist.

The results will be announced on July 27.

Coughlin coached the Giants for 12 seasons (2004-15) and was a two-time Super Bowl winner(XLII, XLVI). He also was the first head coach of the expansion Jacksonville Jaguars in 1995, taking the team to two AFC Championship Games. He had an overall NFL record of 182-157 over 20 seasons.

Anderson split 14 seasons between the St. Louis Cardinals (1979-1986) and Giants (1986-1992). He is a two-time Super Bowl champion and six-time 1,000-yard rusher. He was also named MVP of Super Bowl XXV.

Conerly played all 14 of his NFL seasons (1948-61) with the Giants. He won the NFL title in 1956 and passed for 19,488 yards and 173 touchdowns.

Banks was the third overall selection in the 1984 NFL draft out of Michigan State. He was a two-time Super Bowl champion during his time with the Giants (1984-1992). Banks also played one season in Washington (1993) and two in Cleveland (1994-95).

Walls playedย most of his NFL career (1981-93) with the Dallas Cowboys, where he was named to three first-team All-Pro teams, four Pro Bowls and led the NFL in interceptions three times while in Dallas. He finished his career with the Giants and Cleveland Browns and helped Big Blue to victory in Super Bowl XXV.

Also on the coach/contributor list is former Giants assistant/defensive coordinator Marty Schottenheimer and head coach John McVay.

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Ranking 8 best assistant coaches in Giants history

From Marty Schottenheimer to Vince Lombardi, Giants Wire ranks the eight best assistant coaches in New York Giants history.

The New York Giants are closing in on a century of existence and many famous and powerful names have worn the blue over that time.

When it comes to head coaches, the Giants have had some great ones — Bill Parcells, Tom Coughlin, Jim Lee Howell, and Steve Owen — and some notable ones in Allie Sherman, Jim Fassel, and Alex Webster.

But what the Giants are really known for is grooming head coaches; men who worked for the club and went on to become some of the great head coaches in NFL history.

Here are eight of those names.

Tom Coughlin returns to MetLife Stadium for Jay Fund charity event

Former New York Giants head coach Tom Coughlin returned to MetLife Stadium last week to host the Jay Fund Foundation Sundae Blitz.

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This past Friday, former New York Giants head coach Tom Coughlin returned to MetLife Stadium. He wasn’t there on any team-related business but rather, Coughlin arrived to host a Jay Fund Foundation charity event.

It was the first time Coughlin was able to attend the annual Sundae Blitz in several years. It was a bittersweet moment after losing his wife, Judy, on November 2. He had become her full-time caregiver after she was diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy.

“When you spend four or five years and your routine is all around your better half and all of a sudden that stops, it’s tough,” Coughlin told Bob Glauber of Newsday. “I used to be very busy between 6 and 8 p.m., because we would get the meal ready, we would clean up and put her to bed. Iโ€™m sitting there now and saying, ‘What do I do?โ€™ But I want to be busy. I want to be active. If I can be involved in this and I can see the benefits of helping the families, certainly that helps.”

Judy was a regular at Jay Fund events. She loved to help families in need and never once sought any notoriety for it. Coughlin is very much the same in that regard.

“Everything is about the kids,” Coughlin said. “That’s what makes life worthwhile, and when a parent comes up to you, takes you aside and tells you what you’ve meant to them and their child is standing right now to them and still fighting . . . It’s not about me, but I’ll tell you what it’s about. It’s about compassion and helping others when they need it.”

There were 250 attendees spanning 60 families at Friday’s Sundae Blitz. In addition to Coughlin, several Giants legends also attended. Among them were Chris Snee, Harry Carson, David Tyree and Kevin Boothe. Recently signed defensive tackle A’Shawn Robinson also made it a point to stop in after the Giants had concluded practice for the day.

Photo credit: Evan Pinkus

“This is what puts life in perspective,” Coughlin said. “You win a Super Bowl, then you visit a hospital, you see the parents who stay there overnight, you see the sick child, you know what they’re going through, you know their lives are completely disrupted and nothing is normal anymore. You realize these are people that need help, and in many cases they have no place to turn. We’ll put a roof over their heads, food on their table, pay their electric bill, transport them back and forth to the hospital. We’re going to be there when nobody else is there.”

Coughlin and the Jay Fund have never failed in their mission. Since being founded in 1996, they have distributed more than $20 million to upwards of 6,000 families in need.

On October 13, the Jay Fund will hold their next event — the Champions for Children Gala, which will also be held at MetLife Stadium. Giants head coach Brian Daboll will be among the honorees.

Information on how to attend the event can be requested at the official Jay Fund Foundation website. Donations can also be made by clicking here.

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Former Giants coach Tom Coughlin to be honored at Boston College Dinner

Retired New York Giants coach Tom Coughlin will be honored at the 33rd Wall Street Business Leadership Council Tribute Dinner on April 20.

Retired New York Giants head coach Tom Coughlin will be honored at the 33rd Wall Street Business Leadership Council Tribute Dinner on April 20 in New York City.

Coughlin, a three-time Super Bowl champion with the Giants, will receive the 2023 President’s Medal for Excellence.

Tom Coughlin is a former National Football League head coach who was part of three New York Giants Super Bowl winning teams, twice as head coach. He won his first Super Bowl while an assistant to legendary coach Bill Parcells in 1990. In 2004, he joined the New York Giants for 12 Seasons as head coach, leading the Giants to victory in Super Bowl XLII and Super Bowl XLVI, both times beating the New England Patriots.

Coughlin was also the inaugural head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars, serving from 1995 to 2002 and leading the team to two AFC Championship Games. He ranks as the 14th winningest coach in NFL history with 170 wins.

Prior to coaching in the NFL, Coughlin served as the Boston College football quarterbacks coach from 1981 to 1983. During that time, he coached 1984 Heisman Trophy winner Doug Flutie. From 1991 to 1993, he served as the Eaglesโ€™ head coach. He is founder of the Tom Coughlin Jay Fund Foundation, established in 1996 to help families tackle pediatric cancer. To date, the foundation has provided over $17 million in financial assistance and helped over 5,000 families.

Ahead of the event, Joe Sabia, who runs ‘73 questions‘ for Vogue, joined Coughlin via Zoom for a modified version of the interview. Instead of 73 questions, Sabia asked the coach 31 questions in honor of Jay McGillis, who served as inspiration for Coughlin to found the Jay Fund Foundation.

During the interview, Coughlin touches on many subjects including his time with the Giants and Boston College, his rivalry with the New England Patriots and, of course, his late wife, Judy.

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Tom Coughlin raves about Jaguars’ ‘never say die’ attitude

Tom Coughlin is impressed with the job Doug Pederson has done in Jacksonville.

Tom Coughlin’s career as a coach and executive in the NFL is over now, but that doesn’t mean the 76-year old isn’t watching the Jacksonville Jaguars anymore.

In an interview with First Coast News, the former Jaguars coach and executive vice president raved about the job that Doug Pederson did with the team in 2022.

“Doug Pederson did a great job, hands down,” Coughlin said. “Can you imagine at 3-7 saying, ‘I have a vision. I see us playing the Tennessee Titans on Week 18 for the divisional title.’ What are you crazy? You look like a bunch of…

“He had the audacity to say that, but you know what’s returned? They do believe in each other. Fourth quarter wins, never say die. Now that’s been missing around here for a long, long time. Never say die. That same team the year before, things are not going their way? The last team that I was with here, things aren’t going their way? They’re checking out.”

The Jaguars finished the regular season on a five-game win streak that included a 17-point comeback against the Dallas Cowboys and a come-from-behind win against the Titans in Week 18. Then in the playoffs, Jacksonville erased a 27-point deficit to beat the Los Angeles Chargers.

Coughlin previously coached the Jaguars for the first eight seasons of the franchise’s history. After 12 seasons coaching the New York Giants, Coughlin returned to the Jaguars as an executive in 2017 and spent three years in the role.

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Tom Coughlin: Parting with Giants was very painful

Tom Coughlin says parting ways with the New York Giants was “painful” and he wishes he could have coached them for at least five more years.

The last time the New York Giants were champions, Tom Coughlin was the head coach. He led Big Blue to a pair of Super Bowl victories over Bill Belichick, Tom Brady and the New England Patriots but his departure from the team after the 2015 season is still very much a topic of conversation.

The Giants framed Coughlin’s exit as a ‘retirement’ but during the press conference, he revealed that he wanted to continue coaching.

The Giants had just completed their third consecutive losing season and fourth without a postseason appearance. It was time for Coughlin to step aside, even if many felt the team’s demise was not on his shoulders alone.

In an interview with Steve Serby of the New York Post, Coughlin spoke about what it meant to him to run the Giants for 12 seasons.

“It meant everything to me. I’m a New York kid, I was born and raised in Waterloo, New York, the black-and-white TV, all I ever saw were the Giants and the Browns,” Coughlin said. “Thinking that I would ever have a chance to be there, and then be there with Wellington Mara as the owner, then the second time around with Bob Tisch there โ€ฆ incredible memories, and I was very honored and very thrilled and very humbled to be a head coach of the New York Giants.”

Serby asked Coughlin if he had any regrets about his tenure with the Giants.

“I regret the fact that I didn’t coach in New York for another five years,” he said laughingly. “I loved the position that I was in. Given the circumstances, we were trying to win games the best we could, thatโ€™s all. Would have been nice to finish there.”

Asked if it hurt to be let go by the Giants, Coughlin did not hold back.

“Oh, it hurts a lot, you kiddin’ me? It’s very, very painful. There’s a lot of pride at stake. It’s happened to me before and I didn’t like it, and I don’t like anything about it. It’s reality, so you move on,” Coughlin said.

Now that he is essentially out of the game, the 76-year-old is on many experts’ lists for Hall of Fame consideration. In the interview, he had many sentiments about his late wife, Judy, who passed away last year, the players (including Eli Manning, Michael Strahan, and Odell Beckham Jr.), the fans, and also spoke about what makes him worthy to be enshrined in Canton.

“I hope it’s the way in which I conducted myself,” he said. “The fact that when I took over the Jacksonville Jaguars, this was an expansion team, and in the first five years we were in the AFC Championship Game twice.

“It was an opportunity to put people together from all walks of life in football and start from scratch, and I certainly enjoyed the challenge of that, the historical challenge was very meaningful to me. My experiences as a head coach at Boston College, and working for Bill Parcells with the Giants and Super Bowl 1990 had a tremendous impact on me. And despite slow ups and downs, obviously, ’07 and ’08, and ’11 and ’12 were pretty good years for us in New York.”

Coughlin said he did not know who would present him for enshrinement when that day came saying he’s not looking that far ahead, but his choice likely won’t be a surprise (Eli, Strahan, Chris Snee, perhaps?).

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Steve Spagnuolo: Tom Coughlin deserves to be in Hall of Fame

Steve Spagnuolo believes retired New York Giants head coach Tom Coughlin deserves to be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Kansas City Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo has been around the NFL block a few times as both a head coach and an assistant.

This Sunday, Spagnuolo will be coaching in a fifth Super Bowl and fourth under head coach Andy Reid. Spags, as he is known, first reached the big game back in 2004 as the linebackers coach for Reid’s Philadelphia Eagles.

Philadelphia fell to the New England Patriots inย Super Bowl XXXIX, 24-21, that year in Jacksonville. But Spags caught the eye of New York Giants head coach Tom Coughlin, who poached him from Philly in 2007 to become the Giants’ defensive coordinator.ย 

In his first season as Giants’ DC, Spagnuolo’s unit led Big Blue all the way back to the Super Bowl where this time, he beat the Patriots, 17-14, ending New England’s quest for an undefeated season.

After the Giants, Spags would bounce around the league, first as the head coach of the pitiful St. Louis Rams and then made stops in New Orleans, Baltimore, and the Giants again before returning with Reid in Kansas City, where they have won three AFC Championships and another Super Bowl together.

Reid is certainly headed to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but Spagnuolo believes Coughlin should also be enshrined in Canton.

“How fortunate am I to have worked with two Hall of Famers?” Spagnuolo said in his Media Day interview on Monday. “They’ll both be in the Hall of Fame — if they’re not, something’s wrong. It can’t get any better for me. Who would’ve thought a short, white guy from Grafton, Massachusetts, would work for two Hall of Fame head coaches and go to a few Super Bowls and experience a couple of wins? I pinch myself a lot. I consider myself very, very fortunate.”

Of all of the Super Bowl experiences Spagnuolo has had, he rates his trip with the Giants the highest because the Patriots had “the greatest offense ever to have been put out there.”

“What the Patriots did — going undefeated, Tom Brady, Moss, the whole matchup — that was a pretty big challenge. I’m not sure I’ve had to face that kind of challenge since then. Now, you get into a Super Bowl, and they’re all huge challenges. But that was a pretty special thing,” Spagnuolo said.

This Sunday, Spags faces one of his former teams in the high-powered Eagles, and revealed he and his wife still have a home there.

“We’ll always have ties there. Isn’t that funny? I still have a home there, and now we’re playing them in the Super Bowl. We spend a lot of time in the offseason — it’s Philadelphia, and it’s the Jersey Shore,” Spagnuolo said. “That part of the country is always going to be part of me. Wouldn’t you know, we played the Patriots in some Super Bowls. And now we’re playing the Eagles in some others. So, eastern guy.”

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