The new head coach of the New York Giants shares insights on his first two weeks in the role, the challenges of building a new coaching staff, and the frenetic pace of the NFL coaching carousel. He discusses the importance of assembling the right team and shares personal anecdotes.
was driving down the New Jersey Turnpike toward his suburban Baltimore home Thursday night after an exhausting but exhilarating second week as the head coach of theFor the first time in 18 years, he has been charged with building almost an entirely new coaching staff , and he knows this is where the road to success begins for every NFL head coach in a new location.
Some members of his most recent staff with the Baltimore Ravens have followed him to East Rutherford, but he will have a new offensive coordinator and a new defensive coordinator Ingrid somewhere for four days just to get away and every year I’d spend half the day on Zoom interviews. Every year, she’d be like, ‘Oh my God.’ Now, she’s just used to it, and she says, ‘We’re not scheduling anything until after lunch because you’re going to be on Zoom calls all morning.’You’ve never had a first-time play caller at offensive coordinator but you have at defensive coordinator. Why is that?I think it’s a really important thing, but it’s really important to hire a great staff and then to empower them and service them and monitor them and problem solve with them. That’s your job as the head coach. You need to see better ways to maybe game plan or better ways to operate … because the players usually reflect how they’re being coachedYes, for sure. We won’t just talk to him about it. The quarterback coach will be drilling that with him … talking about situational football and showing him the risk-reward and cost-benefit analysis of how you play. He’ll get it … because he’ll start to realize how valuable he is to the team. But he’s also going to want to make first downs when he has to. He’ll learn to make those decisions, hopefully. I always thought Lamar was really good at making those decisions. He kind of naturally did a great job with that. And I would think Jaxson would get to that point, too.We hate not dominating on special teams. It’s just as important as offense and defense. I think our guys are going to find out quickly how important it is just by the amount of energy we put into it. They’ll see how much we put into the meetings and how much time we devote in practice. They’re going to know it’s huge. We don’t return a kick as well as we should or we don’t cover the way we’re supposed to, we’re ticked off beyond belief. It pisses us all off.Your special teams with the Ravens finished in the top 10 a total of 12 times in 18 years and in the top five 10 times. The Giants only finished in the top 10 six times and in the top five twice during those 18 years. I know that’s not a question, but …I love that stat. The great Jerry Rosberg had a lot to do with that and now it’s Chris Horton and he’s staying with me. and he talked about your style of coaching. How would you describe yourself as coach?You have to meet people in the circumstances where you find them. So it’s different coaching the kickoff team than it is coaching a cornerback. It’s different in the special teams room with 30 guys in there than in a DB room where you have 10. I think one of the biggest challenges for guys is, if the guys were the quarterback coaches, then they become head coaches you’re going from a room of three to a room of 53. It’s all kind of different personalities, and you’ve got to be able to make that transition. The guys who are successful are the guys who do it well like Sean Payton and Jon Gruden. Some guys don’t have quite as much range.Honestly, I always thought I had it, I guess. I didn’t think I didn’t have it. My best friend in coaching, Jerry Rosburg, we both kind of came up the same way. We were two guys who took everything on. The only thing we never coached was quarterbacks … but everything else we took on and at some point you kind of become a jack of all trades and a master of none. But you are a master of being a jack of all trades. In the end, that gave me the ability to be a head coach, which I’m very grateful for.How much is your coaching style a reflection of your father Jack ?Yeah, it is. It is a direct reflection for Jim and I both. Like, when you see us, I would say the basis for sure is 100 percent Jack Harbaugh. Our mom is in there, too. It’s a good combination: the intensity and joy of Jack Harbaugh. It’s unbridled enthusiasm with relentless determination and a fiery intensity. His players used to talk about when his beady black eyes came out, watch out. I remember that a few times when I was in high school, too. That guy, I think he was one of the greatest coaches ever and not too many people really knew it because of where he coached, but all the players who played for him know it.I think Jim looks more like him and I look more like my mom. I think I get all the best traits. Jim probably got all the worst traits. Joking.So you spent a lot of years on the Eagles’ side of the Eagles-Giants rivalry. What’s your best memory from that side?Of course a special teams play. It might have been the key play of that season for the Eagles and Giants. Westbrook had an 84-yard punt return in the final two minutes. There’s a great photo that hangs in the Eagles’ practice facility of the Giants’ special teams coach throwing down his clipboard as Westbrook runs by him.That photo is iconic. The coach is Bruce Read. Now, here’s the irony of that. You talk about football being a small world. Bruce Read was the special teams coach at Oregon State when Jay Harbaugh was a student there. Jay was a graduate assistant and Bruce’s special teams coach. And now Jay is the special teams coach at Seattle, who I think were the number one special teams unit in the NFL this season. They’ve had numerous big plays in the playoffs to get to the Super Bowl.I just remember watching those clips of Bill Parcells saying, ‘This is why you lift all those weights.’ And then I remember reading a football book and there was a chapter about Y.A. Tittle and there’s a picture of him on his knee and his bald head was bleeding. That to me was the Giants.Bob Brookover has been the Eagles beat reporter at NJ Advance Media since November of 2023. He joined the organization as a Giants beat writer in September 2022 after a 40-year career covering Philadelphia...
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