A GIANT WIN

A key figure serves up an in-depth analysis of an underdog Super Bowl victory.

Coughlin—pronounced COFF-lin—was the New York Giants coach in 2007, when the team went up against the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. There he faced Bill Belichick, who had been a Giants coach when Coughlin started out under Bill Parcells. “We…shared one belief,” he writes. “Competition brought out the best in people.” That competition was fierce; at the time, the Patriots were 18-0, “the best record in the NFL’s history.” Yet, Coughlin writes in this nearly minute-by-minute account, the Giants brought in strategies that turned the tide. One was to pressure Patriots quarterback Tom Brady relentlessly: “We knocked him down on that play and then knocked him down sixteen more times, including five sacks….The pressure on Brady is why we won that game.” When you expect to be sacked, he adds, it tends to ruin a quarterback’s day. Other strategies were to let the Giants players, including a bunch of rookies, have free play under the tight captainship of Eli Manning, which yielded such spectacular moments as David Tyree’s still-remembered “helmet catch.” Through the lens of that storied game, Coughlin tells his own story as a player and coach, offers character sketches of his players (including Tyree, who initially “couldn’t resist the pull of the streets off the field” but became a model of comportment), and delivers a deft portrait of the pro game and the thinking that goes into every play as well as the many back-office figures who contribute to success on the field. For fans, though, the best parts of the book are the author’s nimble descriptions of small but important moments and figures in the game. For example, “Amani [Toomer] was good at running curls because he could get his body under control without telegraphing that he was slowing down.” Eli Manning provides the foreword.

A delightful read for gridiron devotees.