PHILADELPHIA – Tom Coughlin is no longer the object of New York’s scorn and wrath, because he’s given New York a team built in his own snarling, fighting image. A tough team, for a tough town. A no-nonsense, together, 60-minute, Cardiac Coughlin team that may finally have learned how to honor the memory of the late Wellington Mara.
The middle linebacker wakes up in the morning and against all odds wills himself onto the field with a pair of ankles you wouldn’t wish on your grandfather. “He’s a warrior, now,” Coughlin said. They all are.
The big-play wide receiver, with an ankle that still bars him from practice, remembers how to change the complexion of the offense.
The quarterback, who had thrown six interceptions over the previous two weeks, manages himself as well as the game and doesn’t make any grievous mistakes.
The secondary, manned by three rookies in the nickel package, never cracks.
The raging bull running back, rusty after missing two weeks, loses a fumble at the Eagles’ 5 and Big Blue has his back thanks to Antonio Pierce defending a fourth-and-6 Donovan McNabb pass over the middle to Jason Avant.
It was Bill Parcells who said God is playing in these games sometimes, and a year ago, David Akers would have made the 57-yard field goal at the very end to force overtime; yesterday it clanked off the right upright.
It meant Giants 16, Eagles 13.
It means only the equivalent of The Fumble, an unimaginably cruel twist of fate, can keep these 9-4 Giants out of the playoffs.
It means Tom Must Stay, one year after Tom Must Go.
It means a team and a lame-duck coach left for dead are very much alive.
It will soon mean three straight seasons in the playoffs, which may not be good enough for the Yankees, but ought to be plenty good enough for the Giants, whether Coughlin fails to win his first playoff game in New York in three tries or not.
For once, the white NY on the blue jacket and blue cap Coughlin wore to the interview room yesterday seemed to fit him after his Road Warriors won for the sixth time in seven tries.
“We hang together, we battle; we believe in each other, we believe that we could find a way to win,” Coughlin said, “and we never stop playing. We have good heart … it’s not always pretty, but somehow, some way, we scratch and … find a way.”
Pierce was the one yesterday who embodied the will Coughlin talks about all the time. Pierce hadn’t practiced all week, thought about not even making the trip, and came to the Linc thinking about the 2005 playoffs, when he stood helplessly on crutches with a broken ankle and listened as Lawrence Taylor, Harry Carson and Carl Banks told him: “We’da played with a broken ankle.” So a mere sprained ankle wasn’t going to stop him.
“Knowing the legacy of the linebackers and how Giant fans and Giant linebackers are, if it ain’t broke you need to be out there,” Pierce said.
In many ways, they now mirror the personality of their head coach. “We might smile a little bit more than Coughlin does – his personality doesn’t involve a lot of smiling. Definitely, we’re a tough team,” Barry Cofield said. “I think we’re playing smarter football this year. We got the reputation of being kinda loose in the locker room and … kinda chaotic, but that’s certainly not the case anymore.”
At the team hotel Saturday night, an intense and passionate Coughlin challenged his Giants to defy the naysayers. “We need to break that reputation for collapsing in the second half,” was how Cofield recalled it.
Pierce was asked how passionate Coughlin was at the meeting. He smiled. “I think he’s been watching too many ‘Godfather’ movies or something,” Pierce said. Love him or hate him, they know that Coughlin speaks from the heart. “We want to win, and we got a coach that wants to win and is gonna do anything it takes to win,” Pierce said.
Here’s what yesterday meant to Coughlin: He showed his team a quote from the Eagles website. “They said we were the most unimpressive 8-4 team they ever seen,” Pierce said.
Who was quoted? “It just said Philadelphia Eagles dot com,” Pierce said.
They’re an unimpressive 9-4 team today.