For many coaches, an 0-6 start would move them straight from the hot seat to the ejector seat.
But Tom Coughlin is not most coaches.
The goodwill and Lombardi Trophies he’s brought to the Giants in his career bought him some beenfit of the doubt, and Giants co-owner John Mara said Thursday he never lost faith in his coach.
“Let’s just say I never thought that the coach all of a sudden forgot how to coach or that the players forgot how to play,” Mara told Ralph Vacchiano of the New York Daily News. “Sometimes you go through these streaks in this sport. You just have to try to be patient and supportive, and that’s what we tried to be here.
“Hopefully that’ll pay off for us.”
Things have turned with four straight wins, which keeps them in the mix in the mixed-up NFC East.
But Mara said that maintaining faith in his coach and General Manager Jerry Reese wasn’t particularly difficult, as difficult as the season was to that point.
“I don’t think so because I do have a lot of faith and confidence in our organization because they have won before,” Mara said. “They didn’t all of a sudden forget all they knew about football. I think you have to have patience in this business. If you don’t, if you get impulsive and start making changes just because you’re upset after a game, it’s not going to work out in the long run.
“That’s the way you have to look at these things. You’ve got to let the season play itself out and hope you can turn things around. That’s kind of the mind-set we’ve always had.”
Mara wouldn’t comment specifically on the future of either Coughlin or Reese, but he didn’t have to. It’s part of the reason he’s avoided talking during the early part of the season.
“Obviously if there are changes that are possible during the season that you think are going to improve your team — for example Jon Beason joining our team or getting Andre Brown back or things like that — you make those moves,” Mara said. “But to make drastic changes in the middle of the season with your staff is just something you try to avoid. It very rarely works out in the long run. If you feel like you have a good nucleus you’ve got to let them have a chance to turn things around.”
Of course, having a plan and being willing to stick with it when it could be uncomfortable is a difficult thing to ask, hard for organizations which don’t have the kind of track record the Giants do.
