Brian Daboll-Tom Coughlin bond grows stronger at Giants camp
Former Giants head coach Tom Coughlin, left, and current head coach Brian Daboll during training camp in East Rutherford, N.J., on July 29. Credit: Ed Murray
Brian Daboll was heading out the door toward the first practice of training camp a few weeks ago, excited to start the journey of the 2025 season, when a staff member stopped him and handed him his iPhone, which had just buzzed with an urgent message. It takes a lot to get through to an NFL head coach at such a precarious moment in his day so this could have been anything from a family emergency to a note from the front office about a last-second roster move. Whatever it was, this text clearly ranked highly enough to clear the filtration system that keeps distractions away from his headspace.
Daboll peered at the screen. And then he smiled.
“Always good to hear from Coach Coughlin,” Daboll said.
As he embarks on his fourth season with the Giants, that is becoming more and more the case. While the two men have had a friendly, open relationship over the years, this season in particular seems to have brought them closer together as Tom Coughlin imbues Daboll with the wisdom of his tenure as head coach of the Giants and Daboll seeks Coughlin for advice on any number of matters.
Last week Coughlin even spent a few days at training camp with the Giants. He watched the workouts from the sideline even as heat indexes reached triple digits, addressed the team with a thunderous post-practice speech delivered with a tone and timbre that made it feel as if he’d never left, and even gave a few suggestions on how things might be run more effectively . . . his specialty.
Throughout this recent offseason program and into the early phases of camp, Daboll has invited former players to come talk to the team and everyone from Lawrence Taylor to Eli Manning has taken him up on those offers. While Coughlin certainly connected with the players, though, it felt as if he wasn’t here for them. It felt as if he was here for Daboll.
“It’s always good to have a mentor and I have a number of them who have been highly successful,” Daboll told Newsday on Monday. “But someone who has done it here at a high level and won two championships who is willing to offer advice? I’m all ears.”
And so it was last week, even during the practices, that Coughlin and Daboll could be seen shoulder-to-shoulder or face-to-face discussing all the various aspects of a job they have both held. They never worked together on a staff, so there isn’t that brotherhood between them, but they do share similar pasts if you go back far enough — experiences with Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick — that they are more like coaching cousins. They speak the same dialect and have the same references.
Daboll and Coughlin have other things in common, too. Both got their first NFL head coaching jobs in their late 40s after decades of work as assistants. Both oversaw third-year programs that wore away at the patience of a fan base and ownership but were ultimately retained in an effort to finish the job they started. And as of this year both have a highly prized rookie quarterback from Ole Miss who will start the season sitting behind a veteran who had won and lost a Super Bowl earlier in his career.
This current scenario with Jaxson Dart and Russell Wilson is a little different than what Coughlin did with Manning and Kurt Warner. Back in 2004, Coughlin’s first year with the Giants, he spent the year looking for the right place to insert Manning into the lineup. This time the Giants appear that they would be satisfied if Dart sat the entire season behind Wilson and Jameis Winston.
As for the thunderous speech Coughlin delivered to the team last week, it wasn’t a cookie cutter “go get 'em guys” or “we’re all rooting for you” message. That wouldn’t suffice. His was a rousing oratory that harped on details, stressed training camp as a time to build championship teams and reminded the players that while there are superstars, the Giants need everyone to contribute to be successful. It lasted several minutes after a grueling day in the sun . . . and yet every word seemed to resonate.
He’s still got it.
“It was interesting that he said we are no better than the 53rd man,” cornerback Cor’Dale Flott said.
Flott’s father had always been a Giants fan so hearing from Coughlin helped bring him back to that Super Bowl era he’d heard so much about.
Coughlin, for his part, seems happy to be part of this new chapter in Giants history. There was certainly some bitterness when he “parted ways” with the team after the 2015 season and was replaced by his offensive coordinator, Ben McAdoo. Over the years since, Coughlin was busy in other areas of his life that included a brief return to the front office in Jacksonville, his constant work with the Jay Fund that raises money for families dealing with pediatric cancer and his role as a caretaker for his beloved wife Judy as she suffered and ultimately succumbed to a rare brain disease. He was still on the fringes during the tenures of Pat Shurmur and Joe Judge, but never in a position to roll up his sleeves and really pitch in.
Now he is. His son-in-law, Chris Snee, works for the Giants, too, as an offensive line scout. Coughlin, who turns 79 at the end of this month, can come to New Jersey to see his grandkids and his former team in the same trip . . . and undoubtedly give pointed advice to both. At one intersection of those roles last week he was doing both at the same time on the sideline of a Giants practice, pointing out details to one of his grandsons. That kind of efficiency has to appeal to him!
All of which is to say Coughlin is ready to be a bigger part of the Giants again, at a time when perhaps he is most needed and the entire organization — not just Daboll — is ready to have him back in the fold.
“I have a good relationship with him and I try to use him when I need to use him,” Daboll said. “He’s a very good resource for me, someone I have a lot of appreciation for and a lot of respect for what he’s done in the NFL and how he has handled his teams.”
Right now the two most glaring differences between the two men can be expressed in Roman numerals: XLII and XLVI. If Daboll ever manages to close that gap, Coughlin may be a part of that success, too.
“In this league there is the pinnacle and everything else,” Daboll said. “There are rough times and times of improvement. When you have mentors who have done it in the league for a long time and experienced everything you have experienced . . .”
Daboll shrugged as if to say he’d be bonkers not to listen.
So no matter where Daboll is at the time or what he is doing that requires all the hyperfocused football attention he can muster, a text from Coughlin will get right through to him.
It will always be good for Daboll to hear from Coach Coughlin.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
