It was barely over three months ago that the Giants were finishing another lost season, a 4-13 record following 3-14 the season before. Brian Daboll had been fired and Mike Kafka, the interim who replaced Daboll, was on his way out the door and there was still a feeling around here that Joe Schoen might follow him. Over the more than ten years since their last Super Bowl, the Giants had essentially gone from being one of the league’s most respected franchises to being, well, the Jets.
They did not look quite as hopeless as the Jets just because of Jaxson Dart. They had their quarterback of the future — at least if he could keep remembering when to slide — and the Jets, even if we didn’t know it at the time, were about to do their back-to-the-future thing with Geno Smith. Still: The Giants were once again looking for a new coach if not necessarily for a new general manager, what would be their fifth fulltime HC since Coach Coughlin.
They had gone from Coughlin and Eli Manning and one more Super Bowl victory over the Patriots, from that lofty place in Giants history — again — to a 7-27 record over the last two years. They had lost their way, as they kept losing games on their way to more lost seasons.
And now three months later, there is not just real optimism again around the team, there is the reasonable expectation that they can actually produce a winning record next season, one that can’t come soon enough for their fans. From hopeless to hope, that quickly.
If there was inflection point for all this, it was the drafting of another Ole Miss quarterback in Dart. Then came the hiring of John Harbaugh, the first coach the Giants had ever hired who’d won a Super Bowl somewhere else. And it is absolutely fair to wonder if Harbaugh takes this job — and all the power that has come with it — if Dart hadn’t been in place when the job did come open again.
There wasn’t this kind of excitement when the great Bill Parcells became the Giants head coach after being an assistant, and there sure wasn’t much excitement after he went 3-12-1. There wasn’t this kind of excitement when John Mara and Ernie Accorsi hired Coughlin, even though Coughlin had taken an expansion team in Jacksonville to the AFC championship game.
It is different with Harbaugh, it just is. He didn’t have to take the job, but the Giants had no choice, none, but to offer it. As soon as he said yes to the Maras, the Giants felt legitimate again. They had recaptured the credibility squandered across the years since Coughlin and Eli had done it again to Belichick and Brady, this time in Indianapolis, once again only allowing them two touchdowns in the process.
The truest equivalency for this, around here, was Dave Checketts hiring Pat Riley, coaxing him out of retirement and bringing him to New York to coach the Knicks. Riley, of course, had won more with the Showtime Lakers than the one Super Bowl that Harbaugh won with the Ravens. But Pat brought hope to the Knicks and to the Garden where there had been precious little across the 1980s, where the ship kept sinking. Riley made Knicks fans feel as if their team could matter again, nobody knowing that in his very first year that they would take Michael Jordan to seven hard games in the playoffs.
Two years later the Knicks were going seven games in the NBA Finals against the Houston Rockets. Clearly the biggest allure for Riley on his way in the door — other than the stage and the city — was that the Knicks had Patrick Ewing. Patrick had already done so much more in his sport than a rookie like Dart did in his; and wasn’t Kareem, whom Riley had coached in L.A. But he was a star center. Jaxson Dart? He looked like a future star at quarterback when Harbaugh looked at the Giants.
Whatever Harbaugh might say, if Dart’s not here, he’s not here.
And whatever people over in MetLife Stadium might say, Harbaugh is not just the coach of the Giants now, he is their CEO in the same way, the exact same way, that Bill Belichick was in New England. This was his draft because it is his show now, for as long and well as the show lasts. He has his own blueprint for what he wants the Giants to be the same way Riley had his blue index cards when he was coaching the Knicks.
Does that mean Harbaugh is going to win another Super Bowl here? It sure does not. Maybe you know this and maybe not, but no coach, not a single one, has ever won the Super Bowl with two different teams. Parcells coached in one with the Patriots after he left the Giants. Andy Reid had won in Philly before he started bundling Super Bowls in Kansas City. Mike Holmgren lost one with the Seahawks after winning one with the Packers. Dick Vermeil coached in two but only won with the Rams.
Weeb Ewbank won NFL championships with the Johnny Unitas Colts before the advent of the Super Bowl, and then won Super Bowl III with the Jets. Bottom line? If John Harbaugh does win another Lombardi Trophy with the Giants, he will have made profound NFL history.
For now, he just wants to have the Giants have a winning season again, their last being 9-7-1 under Daboll when he was Coach of the Year. He wants to have enough defense with Arvel Reese and Abdul Carter and Brian Burns and enough offense with Dart and Malik Nabers and (hopefully) a healthy Cam Skattebo to finally end up closer to first place in the NFC East than last. And have a shot at the playoffs, even fighting it out with the Cowboys, who got a lot better on the first night of the draft, and with the Eagles; and with Jayden Daniels and the Commanders.
Riley saw the possibilities with the Knicks, even with them coming off a 39-43 record the season before he got here, and doing no better than the No. 8 seed in the Eastern Conference. He immediately made the Knicks matter again the way Harbaugh believes he can make the Giants matter again. Think about it this way: When was the last time Giants fans came away from the first night of the draft feeling as good about things and about each other as they did on Thursday night?
Whatever happens this season, it looks and feels as if the Giants are back in the game. I know I grew up a Giants fan. But it’s still where they belong. Parcells and Simms. Coughlin and Eli. Harbaugh and Dart? Why not?
CRIME AND COVERUP WITH VRABEL, THE BRILLIANCE OF LEBRON & A NO VOTE ON YANKS JERSEY …
There seems to be this notion that Mike Vrabel displayed some sort of accountability by stepping away — if briefly — from the Patriots and seeking counseling because of a relationship with NFL reporter Dianna Russini.
Accountability where, exactly?
Whatever Vrabel is doing, and whatever he is saying, is because he and Russini got good and caught.
Incidentally? That’s not moralizing, it’s simply the reality of this situation.
Really, this is a variation of that classic sports apology, the one where the guy in trouble says that if he’s offended everybody, he wants to apologize.
And you always want to say, no, you DID offend everybody, it’s WHY you’re apologizing, clumsily or not.
Vrabel certainly isn’t the first big name in sports to get caught, just the latest.
But the wisdom on something like this never changes, about how it’s never just the crime, it’s the coverup.
Listen, it you think it was all Mikal Bridges’ fault in Game 3, you were watching the wrong movie.
Once, it was Michael Jordan who did these bad things to the Knicks at this time of year.
And Reggie Miller.
Now it’s Tyrese Haliburton and 34-year-old CJ McCollum.
If the Knicks do lose this series to Atlanta, Leon Rose might want to get himself some Garden survival tips from Chris Drury.
That lineup the Yankees faced at Fenway this past week makes the Red Sox batting order from last October’s Wild Card series look like the ’27 Yankees.
Or the ’26 Yankees, for that matter.
If you are still doubting the brilliance of LeBron James, who will be 42 in December, I submit the all-around ball he played in those first two games against the Rockets.
I will say this again:
If I had to pick one basketball player to play for my life, it’s Michael, hands down.
But no player in NBA history has ever done more, game to game and year to year, to help his team win than LeBron has.
The guy could have been an All-Star at any of the five positions on the floor.
What a shame that Carlos Alcaraz will be missing the French Open with a wrist injury, one year after the Roland Garros final between him and Jannik Sinner that was the greatest men’s tennis match I’ve ever seen in my life.
Bo Bichette is going to work out just fine.
Is Aaron Boone still dug in on Ben Rice not playing every day?
I was watching the T’Wolves play the Nuggets the other night and missing the Big Ragu all over again.
One more thing about Mikal:
It might be a long way for me from my point guard days at Bishop Guertin High School, but I did score as many points against the Hawks in Game 3 as he did.
Put me down as voting “No” on alternate road jerseys for the Yankees.
And can I vote more than once?
