E-GIANTS
Dave Klein was the Giants' beat writer for The Star-Ledger from 1961 to 1995.
He is the author of 26 books and he is one of only three sportswriters to have covered all the Super Bowls. Dave has allowed TEAM GIANTS to reprint some of his articles.

MARA, COUGHLIN, REESE DISCUSS THE 2014 SEASON,
ANNOUNCE NO CHANGES YET

By Dave Klein
The Giants held a fully-attended Big Three press conference Tuesday morning -- the trio being co-owner John K. Mara, head coach Tom Coughlin and general manager Jerry Reese -- and as might be expected, all the same questions were asked and all of them went unanswered.

But politely.

Mara expressed full confidence in Coughlin as his head coach and in Reese as his general manager. He said all coaching decisions were up to Coughlin, and that all draft decisions were in the hands of Reese.

So wondering whether defensive coordinator Perry Fewell will return, or whether special teams coordinator Tom Quinn will return, were set aside. The standard response--from Coughlin -- is that "I am still evaluating things and it might take a while. That's what I have to say about that."

Mara, who conducted his portion of the press conference with the professionalism and aplomb one might expect from a major front office executive, admitted that the just-concluded 6-10 season was "a major disappointment."

He continued. "I see how driven Tom is, and I cannot stomach the losses. I am aware of the teams we beat and losing to Jacksonville was embarrassing. I wanted to fire everybody at that moment, but I have learned to make decisions when things cool down. I learned a long time ago that you don't make those judgments during the season. You try not to make stupid comments. I was just happy that none of you [the media] approached me in the locker room after that game because I may have said something that I would have regretted for a long time after that."

He also said he was surprised at how so many of the media alleged that the hiring of offensive coordinator Ben McAdoo was done intentionally in order to promote him to head coach for 2015. "I have to admit that when I met him, Tom had already hired him and I went to meet him and welcome him to the team. I honestly didn't know Ben McAdoo from Bob McAdoo [a former NBA star].

"The final decision was always going to be his [Coughlin's] and I think he made a good one."

So we were left with the knowledge that Coughlin makes all the coaching decisions, Reese makes all the personnel decisions and Mara abides by both of their opinions.

Well, not entirely so.

"The defense needs to be improved," he said. "They did not play well. We were ranked where we were ranked [that would be 29th overall]. When you give up the number of game-winning drives that we did, we obviously have a lot of improvement to make. Coaching changes are up to Tom, but we will discuss that with him. I will give him my opinion, but it has always been the case in this organization that the head coach makes the final call on assistant coaches and whether he needs to make any changes, contrary to popular belief. Tom was, for instance, not forced to part ways with [offensive coordinator] Kevin Gilbride last year.

"That was a discussion that Tom and Kevin had. The first discussion that Jerry [Reese] and I had with Tom after the season, we walked into Jerry's office and said to us that Kevin was going to be retiring. That was before we said anything to him. This notion that we forced him to fire Kevin Gilbride is absolutely not true."

Coughlin was asked whether he seemed to be intentionally going out of his way to defend Fewell, and he denied it. "I'm trying to introduce balance, that's all," he said. "If you're going to look at the bad … and I see it, too … How about the first four plays the other day? We spent a week working on that stuff and they [the Eagles] ran the bootleg like we had never seen it before. I saw that, too."

But Coughlin came down to two basic desires for next season. "We have to run the ball and stop the other guys from running the ball," he said. "That will make everything else work better. There's no better example than Dallas this year. Everybody on that team had great stats because they ran the ball so well."

And then he went back to Fewell. "Perry is a very good football coach," he said. "He's been doing this a long time. He's had his ups and downs right here with this franchise. We've gone from here to here. A year ago we were eighth. Sam guy, same coaches, eighth in the league [defensively]. This year we're 29th but he's a good football coach and if I felt that it wasn't being properly introduced, taught, etc., but I haven't finished the evaluations."

More specifically, Coughlin admitted that the Giants would love to have unrestricted free agents Jason Pierre-Paul and Antrel Rolle back, and Mara agreed "depending on what it takes." Coughlin also said he was pleased with the job Eli Manning did, that he progressed well under the new offense installed by McAdoo and "hammered" his way through it so that by the second half of the season he was taking full control of the offense, calling changes and playing well. Manning will be entering the final year of his contract in 2015.

"In the end," he finished, "you're supposed to win. Why else are you here. The goal is to get to the winner's circle every year."

And in a large part, that's where Reese enters the picture.

"I look at the season and we are all disappointed," he said. "I want to apologize to the fans for that. We had plenty of chances to win games and close them out. We didn't."

In his previous seasons, Reese has been characterized by a single phrase when the draft approaches. "We'll go for the best available athlete," he has said, over and over and over. But drafting ninth now, that might not be as fundamental as when he was drafting 20 to 30 positions. "I think we'll really be a good team next year," he said, "and the draft and free agency is going to help us improve where we need improvement."

Also, as opposed to general belief, there is no "I'm the boss and that's it" when it comes to the draft picks. "Tom and I talk all the time," he said. "Nobody stands up and says ‘we're going to take this guy and that's it.' There is no single vote in the draft."

He injected a note of concern and caution near the end of his stint, however, concerning superstar wide receiver Victor Cruz. "He had a serious, significant injury," Reese said, "and I hope he can come back 100 percent next season."

The injury was a torn patella, more critical than torn cartilage or ligament in the knee, and the dream of Cruz, Odell Beckham Jr. and Rueben Randle prancing on the field at the same time will have to be toned down just a little until Cruz proves his health is 100 percent.

"Our draft policy will always be the same," he said. "After extensive research and input from lots and lots of scouts, we try to make the most intelligent pick and we do want to take risks. Sometimes they don't work out. You have to try to give guys a chance to fail, and some of them will. But the ones who make it -- JPP, Beckham etc. -- make it worthwhile.

But as he pointed out, all draft choices are risks. You can never tell how well a player is going to perform until he gets the chance; well, the chance to fail, as Reese said earlier. "We are conscious of where we think our needs are," he said. "But we always try to pick the best player available. If you can get a combination of your need and what the value is, it's an easy pick for you."

And so there has been no developments yet in the coaching staff, except that first-year quarterbacks coach Danny Langsdorf apparently announced his departure to become offensive coordinator at the University of Nebraska. The "big stuff" is yet to come -- if it comes at all.

Check out Dave's website at E-GIANTS where you can subscribe to his newsletters which run much more frequently than what is available here.
- Team Giants

NOW - Send a request to davesklein@aol.com for a free week's worth of news!

Website by Mike