Red Dawn
Go Big Red!
Coughlin to Return for 2007
Mara and Tisch families convinced head coach is best man for the job.
By Michael Eisen, Giants.com
January 10, 2007
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – John Mara and Jonathan Tisch always wanted to retain Tom Coughlin as the Giants’ head coach. After a series of discussions this week involving the three men, the owners are convinced Coughlin is the best man for the job. Mara and Tisch announced today that Coughlin will return for a fourth season on the sideline in 2007.
“Tom Coughlin is our coach for 2007 and hopefully for many years after that.” - Giants President and CEO John Mara
Coughlin received a one-year extension on a contract that was due to expire after next season.
“Tom Coughlin is our coach for 2007 and hopefully for many years after that,” Mara, the Giants’ president and chief executive officer, said on a conference call.
“In all of my discussions, and our discussions with the players, it’s my sense that they are craving the stability that is now afforded by the coach’s remaining,” said Tisch, the team’s treasurer.
In their conversations, the owners were most interested in listening to Coughlin’s vision for the future. Mara and Tisch are displeased that a 6-2 start dissolved into an 8-8 finish and then a second consecutive first-round playoff loss. But after listening to Coughlin’s strategy, they believe he can lead the Giants to the ultimate goal of winning a Super Bowl.
“Much of those discussions were having him tell us what his plan was going forward to make us better and to make us as successful a team as we all want to be,” Mara said. “We were satisfied with how he plans to move forward and we remain convinced that he is the right man for the job to get us to the position that we all want to be in.”
“It is our strong believe that consistency, stability, loyalty and sticking by your people are extremely important,” Tisch said. “Tom has demonstrated and articulated a vision for the future. It is one that we agree with, one that we support, and one that we embrace.”
Neither of the owners would discuss specifics.
“He knew that obviously we were not happy finishing 8-8, particularly after starting 6-2,” Mara said. “There were some problems that the team had during the course of the year and…how he was going to address those, and whether he planned on making any changes going forward, but I don’t want to get into any specifics on that. We addressed our concerns to him. He responded. We were satisfied with his response. Those discussions will probably continue during the course of the week. But at the conclusion of the discussions that we had yesterday we told him that we were satisfied with what his vision for the future is and that we very much wanted him to continue to be our head coach.”
Coughlin conceded a key to the team’s improvement is getting better play from quarterback Eli Manning, who played inconsistently this season.
“I think (the plan) is broad in scope, but one is my belief that Eli will improve,” Coughlin said. “He is the quarterback of the future, and certainly we have work to do there in consistency, in offensive point production, along those lines, but I’m very confident that we will achieve in that area. I think you realize that the picture is brighter than it was when I first came on board, with the two playoff appearances. The competitive nature of our league is a most difficult one. I do think that improvement is in the offing. I think we get some of these people back, we add a strong draft class, we add a few quality people in terms of the opportunities extended to us in free agency. I think we move forward, and so everything that we talk about is all about improving our football team.”
Mara conceded that Manning’s development “was a major part of our discussions."
“Eli needs to play more consistently," Mara added. "He would be the first one to admit that. Something that I have been concerned about is his play over the second half of the season. There is nobody in this building that doubts his ability and that feels like he is not the guy to lead us to where we want to get to. But he has to play more consistently. We know the talent is there because we see him do it.”
Coughlin is 25-23 in the regular season and 0-2 in the postseason with the Giants. He was 6-10 in his Giants debut season in 2004, then led the team to an 11-5 record and the NFC East championship in 2005. The season ended with a 23-0 Wild Card playoff loss to the Carolina Panthers. Last Sunday, the 8-8 Giants were eliminated from the playoffs when David Akers’ 38-yard field goal as time expired sent them to a 23-20 defeat in Philadelphia.
Mara said Coughlin was not told the team must finish with a specific record or again reach the playoffs for the coach to continue in his position beyond the 2007 season.
“I don’t believe in doing that,” Mara said. “He knows that we need to do better, that our expectations are much higher. I think that we have enough talent on this roster to do better. We certainly have some holes that we need to fill in the offseason.
“I want to judge him based on the totality of his work and based on the circumstances that surrounded him during the season. This year, in particular – everybody knows about the number of injuries that we had. I have read out there, ‘Well everybody has injuries.’ Well, no they don’t, not to this extent. And we played a lot of games this year without two Pro Bowl defensive ends (Michael Strahan and Osi Umenyiora), one of whom is going to be in the Hall of Fame; without the best receiver in franchise history (Amani Toomer); without our left tackle (Luke Petitgout), who was having his best year to the point that he got hurt; without our most important free agent acquisition, LaVar Arrington; and without a number of corners and linebackers who got hurt during the year. Now, given all those circumstances, I’m still not happy being 8-8, but we didn’t believe that given those circumstances that a change was warranted.”
Perhaps the chief ancillary issue with Coughlin has been the alleged discontent some players have with his coaching style and/or personal relationships with them. Some have spoken anonymously to area newspapers. But Mara and Tisch said the vast majority of players strongly support Coughlin.
“Both Jon and I have spoken to players on this team, including some of the leaders on this team, and I have spoken to people who were downstairs in that locker room,” Mara said. “I have been in that locker room myself. I have been at practice quite frequently, particularly over the second half of the season, and I don’t buy that. I think there is substantial support for him in that locker room. That’s the feedback that I have received and that’s what I have observed with my own eyes. There is this notion out there that he lost the locker room, that there is a mutiny going on down there. That is absolutely not the case. And I think if you talk to the players who are down there, including the leaders on this team, I think they will certainly dispute that. And particularly the ones that have guts to be identified.”
“A lot has been made about griping and moaning,” Tisch said. “And it’s my sense that it has been overblown. There are players who, my sense is, will be pleased with Tom’s coming back. And the organization can now move forward together to address some issues that Tom will discuss with his assistant coaches, ownership, and then eventually turn that around and have a winning philosophy on the field.”
Coughlin, asked a similar question, stressed the importance of everyone on the team sticking together.
“I think it’s trying to point out the importance of family and remaining together,” he said. “If there is someone who has something on their mind, the door is open, and this is where it starts. For whatever reason, there has been a process where people have gone to the media with questions about things that should remain in-house and should remain within family, not on the outside. I think that the players, they understood my explanation about that and why I thought it was so important for our team and our franchise, and I think we’re making progress along those lines.”
Three of the Giants’ best and most important players – Michael Strahan, Jeremy Shockey (who have 11 Pro Bowl selections between them) and Antonio Pierce – today released statements supporting Coughlin.
“I’m excited to hear that Coach Coughlin will be returning this season,” Strahan said. “He has led us to back-to-back playoff appearances for the first time in my 14-year career. Unfortunately, because of my foot injury, I wasn’t able to be much of a help down the stretch this season. I know the perception is that he is unapproachable and distant from his players, but that’s not the case. I had some of my best conversations with him this season, and he showed me how much he cared about me as a person and as a player when I went to him and pleaded with him to let me play against Dallas and then against Philadelphia. He knew the smart thing to do was to let me heal up some more because I wasn’t ready. I look forward to a healthy return for the ’07 season and helping the Giants organization make a third straight playoff appearance with a better outcome than the past two seasons. Tom is the man to lead us to do just that.”
“Coach Coughlin deserves to be the head coach of the New York Giants,” Shockey said. “I’m glad he’s coming back and I have told a lot of people over the past couple days that I hope he comes back. He and (tight ends) coach (Michael) Pope, all they want is for me to be the best player I can be. I know they know how hard I work at it, and I know how hard they work to get the most out of me. We all need to do a better job together to get ready for another season. Everyone on this team, no matter what anyone from the outside says, understands that nothing is more important to Coach Coughlin than winning and that’s what you want from your coach.”
“Like I’ve been saying, the coach is the real deal,” Pierce said. “He’s a good coach and he does a good job and we all share in what happened this season, and I never thought for one second that Coach Coughlin shouldn’t continue to be our head coach.”
In their separate conference calls, the owners and Coughlin discussed several more issues. Here are some of the points they covered:
*On whether Coughlin will make changes to his coaching staff:
“The process is ongoing,” Coughlin said. “We evaluate everything. I’m in the process of doing that now. I’ve expressed some things of concern as we’ve gone forward in our meetings, and they’re continuing. You’ll know as soon as those decisions are final.”
“We did not insist that he make any changes,” Mara said. “What we wanted to hear from him is what exactly his plan was going forward - what he thought we needed to do to improve as a team and improve as an organization. We wanted to hear those answers and we heard them and we had very good discussions with him over the past couple of days. We are satisfied that he has the right vision going forward.”
*Mara and Tisch have not chosen the successor to retiring general manager Ernie Accorsi, but Mara said that process did not affect the deliberations with Coughlin.
“We felt like we needed to make a decision on the head coach fairly quickly,” Mara said. “We still have some more work to do on the general manager. Ideally, you would like to have the general manager issue be settled first, but those circumstances were not in line for us, so we had to take care of this issue first. And that’s what we did.”
Coughlin said he is not concerned that the general manager’s identity is not yet known.
“We all know that in this day and age you have to work hand-in-hand to see things exactly the same way – what the needs are, how we’re going to go about accomplishing those needs,” Coughlin said. “I have every confidence that when the decision is made as to who the general manager is, it will be someone that will certainly share my thoughts along those lines.”
*Coughlin was asked whether he expects to change as a coach.
“I think I have changed, to be honest with you,” he said. “And I will continue to do that because I think you have to grow and you have to study the circumstances and continue to improve, if you will, every year. No two teams are ever the same and I don’t think your approach can be the same with any two teams that are back-to-back teams. I think the players understand what is important to me, and I think that the more that we get to experience one another, the better off we are.”
Would a change result - as reporter asked – in a “softer, kinder” Coughlin?
“I’ve tried to be understanding and I’ve tried to make them aware of obviously the fact that I am concerned about each and every one of them in more ways than just in football,” Coughlin said. “You don’t get a lot of time to sit during the course of the season and do that, and I hope to be able to catch up on some of that in the offseason.”
Mara isn’t looking for big changes in Coughlin’s personality or demeanor.
“I’m not really concerned about that,” he said. “The only change that I want to see is us win more games. I think you probably have unrealistic expectations if you think you are going to see a significant change. And I don’t want to see significant changes in his persona. He is the hardest working coach that I have ever been around. And he wants to win, probably more than any other coach that I have ever been around. Now he just has to go out there and do it.”
*Mara rejected a suggestion that the upcoming season will be similar to 1996, when, after much discussion, Dan Reeves was retained for a fourth season as head coach. The Giants went 6-10 in a year in which everyone was unhappy.
“I don’t think it is anything like that,” Mara said. “If anything, it is more like the Jim Fassel situation at the end of the 1999 season. He had just completed the third year of his contract. And we were not real happy about where we stood at that point. We thought we should be doing better. But we still believed (in him) at that point and we offered to extend his contract by an additional year. He responded by taking us to the Super Bowl in 2000.
“The big difference between now and 1996 is that Tom very much wants to be here, is very much committed to this franchise and is going to do everything he can to try to win here. In 1996, there were different circumstances. I think at that point Dan really didn’t want to be here. And he had significant philosophical differences with the front office back then, particularly with the football side of the front office. And that does not exist today.”
*The owners said the decision to keep Coughlin had nothing to do with what is perceived to be a weak field of potential replacements.
“This is a positive decision based on keeping this organization together and focused on winning football games and moving forward,” Tisch said. “We made the decision based on our discussions with Tom, who does have a vision for the future as to how the New York Giants will be a winning team. And all of the other atmospherics were not considered. This is a strong statement of support for an organization that is stable and is moving forward under Tom Coughlin’s leadership.”
*Mara disputed a concept that has been written many times, that the decision to hire Coughlin in 2004 was more his late father’s than his. Wellington Mara was a strong supporter of Coughlin before his death in October 2005.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” Mara said. “Ernie Accorsi and I interviewed four candidates. We came back to my father and Bob Tisch and recommended that Tom Coughlin be our choice. They both completely endorsed that recommendation. That was a unanimous decision. This was not anything that was forced upon me or forced upon this organization by my father. This was my decision as much it was anybody else’s.”
“My father flew to Jacksonville to interview Tom and to meet with Tom and came back with a very positive opinion of a man who has extensive football knowledge and knows how to win,” Tisch said. “From the Tisch family perspective, we supported the decision then and we support the decision to have him stay and extend his contact one year.”
http://www.giants.com/news/eisen/story.asp?story_id=24297
----------------------------------------------------
This is good because that's one less coaching vacancy we have to compete with. I'm glad Coughlin got extended, it seemed like some Giant players tried to railroad him.
Mara and Tisch families convinced head coach is best man for the job.
By Michael Eisen, Giants.com
January 10, 2007
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – John Mara and Jonathan Tisch always wanted to retain Tom Coughlin as the Giants’ head coach. After a series of discussions this week involving the three men, the owners are convinced Coughlin is the best man for the job. Mara and Tisch announced today that Coughlin will return for a fourth season on the sideline in 2007.
“Tom Coughlin is our coach for 2007 and hopefully for many years after that.” - Giants President and CEO John Mara
Coughlin received a one-year extension on a contract that was due to expire after next season.
“Tom Coughlin is our coach for 2007 and hopefully for many years after that,” Mara, the Giants’ president and chief executive officer, said on a conference call.
“In all of my discussions, and our discussions with the players, it’s my sense that they are craving the stability that is now afforded by the coach’s remaining,” said Tisch, the team’s treasurer.
In their conversations, the owners were most interested in listening to Coughlin’s vision for the future. Mara and Tisch are displeased that a 6-2 start dissolved into an 8-8 finish and then a second consecutive first-round playoff loss. But after listening to Coughlin’s strategy, they believe he can lead the Giants to the ultimate goal of winning a Super Bowl.
“Much of those discussions were having him tell us what his plan was going forward to make us better and to make us as successful a team as we all want to be,” Mara said. “We were satisfied with how he plans to move forward and we remain convinced that he is the right man for the job to get us to the position that we all want to be in.”
“It is our strong believe that consistency, stability, loyalty and sticking by your people are extremely important,” Tisch said. “Tom has demonstrated and articulated a vision for the future. It is one that we agree with, one that we support, and one that we embrace.”
Neither of the owners would discuss specifics.
“He knew that obviously we were not happy finishing 8-8, particularly after starting 6-2,” Mara said. “There were some problems that the team had during the course of the year and…how he was going to address those, and whether he planned on making any changes going forward, but I don’t want to get into any specifics on that. We addressed our concerns to him. He responded. We were satisfied with his response. Those discussions will probably continue during the course of the week. But at the conclusion of the discussions that we had yesterday we told him that we were satisfied with what his vision for the future is and that we very much wanted him to continue to be our head coach.”
Coughlin conceded a key to the team’s improvement is getting better play from quarterback Eli Manning, who played inconsistently this season.
“I think (the plan) is broad in scope, but one is my belief that Eli will improve,” Coughlin said. “He is the quarterback of the future, and certainly we have work to do there in consistency, in offensive point production, along those lines, but I’m very confident that we will achieve in that area. I think you realize that the picture is brighter than it was when I first came on board, with the two playoff appearances. The competitive nature of our league is a most difficult one. I do think that improvement is in the offing. I think we get some of these people back, we add a strong draft class, we add a few quality people in terms of the opportunities extended to us in free agency. I think we move forward, and so everything that we talk about is all about improving our football team.”
Mara conceded that Manning’s development “was a major part of our discussions."
“Eli needs to play more consistently," Mara added. "He would be the first one to admit that. Something that I have been concerned about is his play over the second half of the season. There is nobody in this building that doubts his ability and that feels like he is not the guy to lead us to where we want to get to. But he has to play more consistently. We know the talent is there because we see him do it.”
Coughlin is 25-23 in the regular season and 0-2 in the postseason with the Giants. He was 6-10 in his Giants debut season in 2004, then led the team to an 11-5 record and the NFC East championship in 2005. The season ended with a 23-0 Wild Card playoff loss to the Carolina Panthers. Last Sunday, the 8-8 Giants were eliminated from the playoffs when David Akers’ 38-yard field goal as time expired sent them to a 23-20 defeat in Philadelphia.
Mara said Coughlin was not told the team must finish with a specific record or again reach the playoffs for the coach to continue in his position beyond the 2007 season.
“I don’t believe in doing that,” Mara said. “He knows that we need to do better, that our expectations are much higher. I think that we have enough talent on this roster to do better. We certainly have some holes that we need to fill in the offseason.
“I want to judge him based on the totality of his work and based on the circumstances that surrounded him during the season. This year, in particular – everybody knows about the number of injuries that we had. I have read out there, ‘Well everybody has injuries.’ Well, no they don’t, not to this extent. And we played a lot of games this year without two Pro Bowl defensive ends (Michael Strahan and Osi Umenyiora), one of whom is going to be in the Hall of Fame; without the best receiver in franchise history (Amani Toomer); without our left tackle (Luke Petitgout), who was having his best year to the point that he got hurt; without our most important free agent acquisition, LaVar Arrington; and without a number of corners and linebackers who got hurt during the year. Now, given all those circumstances, I’m still not happy being 8-8, but we didn’t believe that given those circumstances that a change was warranted.”
Perhaps the chief ancillary issue with Coughlin has been the alleged discontent some players have with his coaching style and/or personal relationships with them. Some have spoken anonymously to area newspapers. But Mara and Tisch said the vast majority of players strongly support Coughlin.
“Both Jon and I have spoken to players on this team, including some of the leaders on this team, and I have spoken to people who were downstairs in that locker room,” Mara said. “I have been in that locker room myself. I have been at practice quite frequently, particularly over the second half of the season, and I don’t buy that. I think there is substantial support for him in that locker room. That’s the feedback that I have received and that’s what I have observed with my own eyes. There is this notion out there that he lost the locker room, that there is a mutiny going on down there. That is absolutely not the case. And I think if you talk to the players who are down there, including the leaders on this team, I think they will certainly dispute that. And particularly the ones that have guts to be identified.”
“A lot has been made about griping and moaning,” Tisch said. “And it’s my sense that it has been overblown. There are players who, my sense is, will be pleased with Tom’s coming back. And the organization can now move forward together to address some issues that Tom will discuss with his assistant coaches, ownership, and then eventually turn that around and have a winning philosophy on the field.”
Coughlin, asked a similar question, stressed the importance of everyone on the team sticking together.
“I think it’s trying to point out the importance of family and remaining together,” he said. “If there is someone who has something on their mind, the door is open, and this is where it starts. For whatever reason, there has been a process where people have gone to the media with questions about things that should remain in-house and should remain within family, not on the outside. I think that the players, they understood my explanation about that and why I thought it was so important for our team and our franchise, and I think we’re making progress along those lines.”
Three of the Giants’ best and most important players – Michael Strahan, Jeremy Shockey (who have 11 Pro Bowl selections between them) and Antonio Pierce – today released statements supporting Coughlin.
“I’m excited to hear that Coach Coughlin will be returning this season,” Strahan said. “He has led us to back-to-back playoff appearances for the first time in my 14-year career. Unfortunately, because of my foot injury, I wasn’t able to be much of a help down the stretch this season. I know the perception is that he is unapproachable and distant from his players, but that’s not the case. I had some of my best conversations with him this season, and he showed me how much he cared about me as a person and as a player when I went to him and pleaded with him to let me play against Dallas and then against Philadelphia. He knew the smart thing to do was to let me heal up some more because I wasn’t ready. I look forward to a healthy return for the ’07 season and helping the Giants organization make a third straight playoff appearance with a better outcome than the past two seasons. Tom is the man to lead us to do just that.”
“Coach Coughlin deserves to be the head coach of the New York Giants,” Shockey said. “I’m glad he’s coming back and I have told a lot of people over the past couple days that I hope he comes back. He and (tight ends) coach (Michael) Pope, all they want is for me to be the best player I can be. I know they know how hard I work at it, and I know how hard they work to get the most out of me. We all need to do a better job together to get ready for another season. Everyone on this team, no matter what anyone from the outside says, understands that nothing is more important to Coach Coughlin than winning and that’s what you want from your coach.”
“Like I’ve been saying, the coach is the real deal,” Pierce said. “He’s a good coach and he does a good job and we all share in what happened this season, and I never thought for one second that Coach Coughlin shouldn’t continue to be our head coach.”
In their separate conference calls, the owners and Coughlin discussed several more issues. Here are some of the points they covered:
*On whether Coughlin will make changes to his coaching staff:
“The process is ongoing,” Coughlin said. “We evaluate everything. I’m in the process of doing that now. I’ve expressed some things of concern as we’ve gone forward in our meetings, and they’re continuing. You’ll know as soon as those decisions are final.”
“We did not insist that he make any changes,” Mara said. “What we wanted to hear from him is what exactly his plan was going forward - what he thought we needed to do to improve as a team and improve as an organization. We wanted to hear those answers and we heard them and we had very good discussions with him over the past couple of days. We are satisfied that he has the right vision going forward.”
*Mara and Tisch have not chosen the successor to retiring general manager Ernie Accorsi, but Mara said that process did not affect the deliberations with Coughlin.
“We felt like we needed to make a decision on the head coach fairly quickly,” Mara said. “We still have some more work to do on the general manager. Ideally, you would like to have the general manager issue be settled first, but those circumstances were not in line for us, so we had to take care of this issue first. And that’s what we did.”
Coughlin said he is not concerned that the general manager’s identity is not yet known.
“We all know that in this day and age you have to work hand-in-hand to see things exactly the same way – what the needs are, how we’re going to go about accomplishing those needs,” Coughlin said. “I have every confidence that when the decision is made as to who the general manager is, it will be someone that will certainly share my thoughts along those lines.”
*Coughlin was asked whether he expects to change as a coach.
“I think I have changed, to be honest with you,” he said. “And I will continue to do that because I think you have to grow and you have to study the circumstances and continue to improve, if you will, every year. No two teams are ever the same and I don’t think your approach can be the same with any two teams that are back-to-back teams. I think the players understand what is important to me, and I think that the more that we get to experience one another, the better off we are.”
Would a change result - as reporter asked – in a “softer, kinder” Coughlin?
“I’ve tried to be understanding and I’ve tried to make them aware of obviously the fact that I am concerned about each and every one of them in more ways than just in football,” Coughlin said. “You don’t get a lot of time to sit during the course of the season and do that, and I hope to be able to catch up on some of that in the offseason.”
Mara isn’t looking for big changes in Coughlin’s personality or demeanor.
“I’m not really concerned about that,” he said. “The only change that I want to see is us win more games. I think you probably have unrealistic expectations if you think you are going to see a significant change. And I don’t want to see significant changes in his persona. He is the hardest working coach that I have ever been around. And he wants to win, probably more than any other coach that I have ever been around. Now he just has to go out there and do it.”
*Mara rejected a suggestion that the upcoming season will be similar to 1996, when, after much discussion, Dan Reeves was retained for a fourth season as head coach. The Giants went 6-10 in a year in which everyone was unhappy.
“I don’t think it is anything like that,” Mara said. “If anything, it is more like the Jim Fassel situation at the end of the 1999 season. He had just completed the third year of his contract. And we were not real happy about where we stood at that point. We thought we should be doing better. But we still believed (in him) at that point and we offered to extend his contract by an additional year. He responded by taking us to the Super Bowl in 2000.
“The big difference between now and 1996 is that Tom very much wants to be here, is very much committed to this franchise and is going to do everything he can to try to win here. In 1996, there were different circumstances. I think at that point Dan really didn’t want to be here. And he had significant philosophical differences with the front office back then, particularly with the football side of the front office. And that does not exist today.”
*The owners said the decision to keep Coughlin had nothing to do with what is perceived to be a weak field of potential replacements.
“This is a positive decision based on keeping this organization together and focused on winning football games and moving forward,” Tisch said. “We made the decision based on our discussions with Tom, who does have a vision for the future as to how the New York Giants will be a winning team. And all of the other atmospherics were not considered. This is a strong statement of support for an organization that is stable and is moving forward under Tom Coughlin’s leadership.”
*Mara disputed a concept that has been written many times, that the decision to hire Coughlin in 2004 was more his late father’s than his. Wellington Mara was a strong supporter of Coughlin before his death in October 2005.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” Mara said. “Ernie Accorsi and I interviewed four candidates. We came back to my father and Bob Tisch and recommended that Tom Coughlin be our choice. They both completely endorsed that recommendation. That was a unanimous decision. This was not anything that was forced upon me or forced upon this organization by my father. This was my decision as much it was anybody else’s.”
“My father flew to Jacksonville to interview Tom and to meet with Tom and came back with a very positive opinion of a man who has extensive football knowledge and knows how to win,” Tisch said. “From the Tisch family perspective, we supported the decision then and we support the decision to have him stay and extend his contact one year.”
http://www.giants.com/news/eisen/story.asp?story_id=24297
----------------------------------------------------
This is good because that's one less coaching vacancy we have to compete with. I'm glad Coughlin got extended, it seemed like some Giant players tried to railroad him.
