There was a time, and not that long ago, when this was the room where joy went to die, where platitudes were plentiful and the paranoia was palpable, and where the man behind the podium bore the distinct whiff of extinction.
Now?
“Good morning!” Tom Coughlin chirps, sounding bouncy and buoyant and bursting with playful energy, like he’s fixing to introduce a P90X exercise video or take your breakfast order.
“Here we go!”
“It’s exciting!”
“It all begins now!”
And then, as a bonus, at no extra cost, you get this: Tom Coughlin leading with his funny bone:
“Before you ask? Yes. And yes.”
He was talking about Jason Pierre-Paul and Victor Cruz, the two highest-profile of the Giants’ assemblage of training-room alumni, preemptively answering what he knew would be on the minds of the masses: if they would practice.
And, no: This little stand-up routine will probably never become a cult classic on “Funny or Die,” but in the realm of standard coaching humor it places solidly somewhere between banana peels on the floor and squirting carnations on the lapel.
And stands in stark contrast to what we have a little farther down the road in Jersey where, a few hours later, Rex Ryan will take 73 words to answer a question (“Who is your backup quarterback?”) that could be answered in three (“It’s Matt Simms”), mostly, it seems, because while he wants to add a funny line or three to the response, his internal editor is on hyper-drive trying to bland-ify him.
“Again … when you look at it … clearly …” he says in response to another simple question, and again you can almost see the devil on his left shoulder saying, “Let’s get a laugh here!” and the angel on his right insisting, “Bore ’em, Rex. Dull ’em to death.”
And the angel, so far, is undefeated.
Now, understand: These are two men occupying very different places on the status spectrum. Four days past his 67th birthday, Coughlin has reached that rarefied perch to which all coaches aspire and few ever attain: seeking to expand a legacy rather than create one. His ship is still tightly run, even if he isn’t quite as tightly wound.
That only makes the Rex 2.0 version seem all the more jarring. But it is also the sliver that Ryan must hold on to now. Every day, it seems, we see another spade and another shovel of earth heaped upon him, even as he goes about the business of preparing the Jets for Tampa Bay on Sunday and the other 15 foes to follow.
Some of the fear and loathing is grotesquely unfair. Some of it is absolutely fair. Either way, it seems less and less likely that Rex can keep his job much longer. Even Vegas has checked in that way. But here’s a question for you:
If Rex does survive, would it be that much more unlikely a turnaround from the crypt than the one Coughlin pulled off in 2007? Remember, Coughlin — like Ryan — barely avoided getting fired the winter before. Coughlin — like Ryan — owed that good fortune to ownership; John Mara admired him and, as important, remembered his father had been absolutely certain Coughlin was built of championship timber. For Ryan it’s even simpler: Woody Johnson just likes him.
So 2007 Coughlin shuffled by the hangman, and he started 0-2, and it wasn’t a question of “if” but “when.” Much like Rex, now. Will he make the bye week? Will he survive the season? It all seems so pre-determined, even if Ryan won’t admit to that.
“I’m not the focus and shouldn’t be ever,” he says. “It’s never been about me. Not one time.”
Well, of course it was, back in the heady early days of the Rex Era, when he was part Buddy Ryan and part Buddy Hackett, and it’s understandable if he feels burned. In the last nine months, he’s been crushed in certain quarters for, in essence, being too loving a husband and too devoted a father. That’s a tough room.
Does this speak to a certain amount of concession on his part?
It shouldn’t. The Jets may not have the horses to duplicate Coughlin’s remarkable turnaround. But stranger things have happened than, say, the 8-8 that could salvage Ryan’s career and his reputation.
Like this: Whoever would’ve believed in 2013, Tom Coughlin would be the funniest football coach in town?