Getty Tom Coughlin has engineered a full franchise reversal in Jacksonville.
If the Jaguars taking on the Patriots is supposed to draw comparisons to David and Goliath, consider Tom Coughlin the slingshot.
Tom Coughlin joined the Jaguars for a second time in January of 2017, signing on as vice president of football operations. He brought with him the football culture needed to turn around one of the league’s worst-performing franchises, and of course, his tiny bottle of Patriots kryptonite that he wears around his neck at all times.
That last part isn’t true. But what is true is that the rivalry between Coughlin and Belichick goes back way further than David Tyree putting a football on his helmet.
The two men were both Giants assistants working under Bill Parcells. Belichick had started as an assitant under the previous regime in 1979, while Coughlin didn’t join the staff until 1988. They were vital to Parcells’ staff, and they were constantly pushing each other to do better.
“He was the defensive coordinator and also coached the defensive backs and the special teams,” Coughlin said during Super Bowl week in 2012. “I had the wide receivers. But the thing was that we each coached the scout squad against each other. He’d tell me what he wanted his guys to work on and we’d throw it at them. I told him what my guys needed to see and he would throw it at us. We cooperated but we also were very competitive against each other in those situations.”
The pair won a Super Bowl with the Giants, and eventually went separate ways. Belichick to the Browns, and Coughlin to Boston College. They didn’t reunite until 1996, when Coughlin, in his second season with the expansion Jaguars, took on the Patriots for a shot at franchise history. The Jaguars fell short, with Belichick working the opposite sideline as an assistant for Parcells and New England.
As head coaches, Coughlin has a 5-2 overall record against Bill Belichick. The two losses are by a combined seven points. In each of those losses, Coughlin finished the seasons by defeating the Patriots in the Super Bowl. He may have been beaten, but he’s always had the last laugh.
Because of their coaching origins, Coughlin and Belichick don’t differ much philosophically. They are both obsessed with preparation, attention to detail and situational awareness at all times. That often leads to mistake-free football, which has a ton in common with winning football.
Coughlin has sent those traits trickling through the Jaguars locker room, where coach Doug Marrone relies on his expert leadership. When asked if Marrone would lean on Coughlin more when facing the Patriots, Marrone wasn’t shy about relying on Coughlin:
“It’s been the same way from Day 1 when we first started working together,” he told reporters. “So when you say: Do you lean on him? I’ve leaned on him quite a bit. We work with each other quite a bit. So we work the same amount of time together and talk about the same things.”
If Coughlin can help the Jaguars defeat the Patriots one more time, he can accomplish something he’s been working on since he first joined the organization in 1995: Lead the Jacksonville Jaguars to the Super Bowl.