The Giants franchise has been a miserable one for more than a decade now, with only faint flashes of hope that were always almost immediately pulled away. They had bottomed out. They became a joke in a way they never would have imagined when they last rode down the Canyon of Heroes, just 14 years ago.
That’s why this moment, a little before midnight on Wednesday, was so significant. They were desperate. They were hopeless. They had tried everything and nothing worked.
Then the entire image of their franchise changed overnight.
To be honest, it’s hard to think of a more significant moment in Giants history than the moment when John Harbaugh, a Super Bowl-winning coach, clearly the prize of this year’s carousel, made the decision to accept the generous offer that the Giants were so desperate to give him. As the new head coach of the New York Giants — the news is expected to become official sometime on Thursday — he brings instant credibility. He carries a feeling of hope.
There is no one in the Giants organization, and probably no Giants fan anywhere, who doesn’t believe this morning that better days — much, much better days — are now ahead.
And sure, they might have been in good hands with Kevin Stefanski too, or Mike McCarthy or some hotshot coordinator who is staring at a long and storied career. But none of them — none — would have come close to creating the buzz and excitement that Harbaugh did.
Not a single other coach would have brought this kind of seismic change.
And it’s understandable because the 63-year-old Harbaugh can clearly coach. When you think about it, the Giants haven’t hired a guy like that since Tom Coughlin in 2004 — and he didn’t come with the same résumé or anything close to the same fanfare. Every coach they’ve hired since they ushered Coughlin out the door after the 2015 season has either been completely inexperienced (Ben McAdoo, Joe Judge, Brian Daboll), or in the case of Pat Shurmur, a product of a bad experience at his previous stop.
What Harbaugh brings is instant gravitas and a long list of accomplishments that command respect. He had a 180-113 (.614) record during his 18 seasons in Baltimore. He won a Super Bowl, got the Ravens to four AFC championship games, won six division titles and got his team to the playoffs 12 times.
Yes, in the playoffs there has always been a feeling that his Ravens underachieved. But in those 12 trips, he won a first-round game nine times. The Giants have been to the playoffs twice and won only one game in the past 14 years. They’ll sign up for whatever taste of the postseason they can get.
And just as importantly as his record and accomplishments, Harbaugh brings with him a reputation for being able to command a room, to get his players to believe in him and follow him anywhere. It’s what the Giants got when they hired Coughlin, though to be fair, it took him until his fourth season to really find his groove.
So just imagine being a player on this current team — a veteran who has known nothing but losing in New York, or a young player who may already be shell-shocked because his NFL experience has been so bad. All of them not only know who Harbaugh is, they know what he’s done. They know whatever he says has been battle-tested. They know he will instantly snap this undisciplined team into shape and get it playing to the potential that many people around the league really seem to believe it has.
The Giants will believe in him simply because of who he is.
That potential Harbaugh will be harnessing, by the way, is why the Giants didn’t fire the man who assembled the talent — embattled general manager Joe Schoen. His bosses understood that the team is loaded with promising, yet underachieving players, and led by a budding superstar at quarterback in Jaxson Dart. That was the gist of their pitch to Harbaugh. They knew that what they needed more than anything was to find the right person to draw that potential out.
The pairing of John Harbaugh and Jaxson Dart could usher in a whole new era for the downtrodden Giants. (Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images)
So give credit to co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch who, according to sources, became fixated on Harbaugh even before he was fired by the Ravens. They absolutely knew they needed to find an experienced coach, a successful coach, to lead this team this time around. And so, when Harbaugh hit the market, they didn’t blink at the huge expense it would cost them to land him. When Harbaugh’s contract is completed, sources believe it’ll likely be for $20 million per year for five years, and then they’ll pay out millions more for what is expected to be an all-star coaching staff.
That is far more than Mara and Tisch have ever paid for a coach and his staff.
And also give them credit for not standing on their history or their old, antiquated rules. They did not insist that the general manager must remain as the king of the castle, as it has always been since the NFL forced them to hire George Young to clean up their franchise in 1979 — arguably the last seismic, franchise-altering event, though nobody felt it at the time. Even Schoen recognized from the beginning that he would need to cede some control and some power.
And there is no doubt at all going forward: This is now John Harbaugh’s team.
The Giants are better — so much better — because of that. They’re probably better off than they’ve been since they plucked the last of the ticker tape from their hair after their Super Bowl parade on Feb. 7, 2012. For the first time in a long time, probably since then, they really, truly believe another parade is coming soon.
That’s a sea change for a hopeless franchise. That’s an earthquake for a team that has suffered through 10 seasons of double-digit losses in the past 12 years. They are 67-129-1 (.342) over that span. It’s a record that earned them a spot as one of the laughingstock franchises of the league.
But nobody’s laughing at the Giants anymore. Not on Thursday morning, and probably not any time soon.
For the first time in a long time, the sun is coming up over their big, gray stadium at the Meadowlands. Their future looks bright, now that John Harbaugh is coming to town.
Ralph Vacchiano is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He spent six years covering the Giants and Jets for SNY TV in New York, and before that, 16 years covering the Giants and the NFL for the New York Daily News. Follow him on Twitter at @RalphVacchiano.
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