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 Dennis Green says the Giants are tough at home, but there are no excuses.
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Jim Fassel discusses how the Giants will defend Randy Moss and Cris Carter.
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Jim Fassel says, "Time-out!" The Giants won't look past the Vikings.
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Jim Fassel and his team worked hard to get to the NFC championship game.
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Saturday, January 13
Fassel, Green kept cool in hot seat
By Wayne Drehs
ESPN.com
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Tight end Howard Cross stood in the center of the Giants' locker room Wednesday and noticed the large group of reporters swarming around 37-year-old tackle Lomas Brown.
He couldn't resist taking some jabs at the 6-foot-4, 290-pound veteran.
|  | | Jim Fassel, who got a Gatorade shower last Sunday, made a splash with his playoff prediction in November. |
"What you guys talking about over there -- oatmeal?" Cross joked. "Lomas doesn't talk about anything but oatmeal, you know."
After the locker room erupted in laughter, Cross fired again.
"Hey, Lomas, tell them about the special medical test they give you when you are getting old. Tell them what that's like."
More laughter, even from Brown. Such is life these days for the New York Giants, a team many believed would be at home by now, without a head coach, wondering what went wrong in yet another late-season slide.
But Jim Fassel refused to let that happen. After consecutive home losses to St. Louis and Detroit in November, with the New York media buzzing about Fassel potentially getting fired, the fourth-year coach was at his best.
He stood before the media, answered their questions, and then made a bold, daring move by guaranteeing that his struggling team would make the playoffs. It pulled the once-divided Giants even closer together, knowing their coach would put his career on the line for them.
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Picking It Up
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The Giants managed only a home season-low 237 yards against Philadelphia in the divisional playoffs, but that seems like an abberation. The New York offense has shown gradual improvement over the course of the season, increasing its point totals and yardage every month of the season.
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PPG
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Total YPG
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Dec.
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29.0
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383.5
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Nov.
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22.5
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360.5
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Oct.
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21.5
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347.5
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Sept.
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13.5
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328.0
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And now, as the Giants prepare to face the Vikings in the NFC championship, he looks like a genius.
"That's nice, but I'll tell you one thing -- it only mattered because these guys backed it up," Fassel said. "That's all that mattered. I could be standing up here and you guys could just be cutting me up if they didn't. It's because of them. They made it happen. Words can be pretty cheap and hollow sometimes unless you're willing to back it up, and I had a group of guys who were willing to back it up."
The case is similar for Fassel's counterpart on Sunday, Minnesota coach Dennis Green. Green, who has long been criticized for not being able to win the big game, was chastised two years ago when he drafted Central Florida quarterback Daunte Culpepper instead of Florida defensive end Jevon Kearse.
And after Green anointed Culpepper the 2000 starter, allowing Brad Johnson and Jeff George to leave via free agency, the questions and concerns grew even louder.
But much like Fassel, Green didn't buckle under that pressure. Culpepper has since become a star. He passed for 302 yards and three touchdowns in his first career playoff game last Saturday against the Saints and will start for the NFC in next month's Pro Bowl.
"I think that says something," Green said. "It lets you know that the players think that Daunte is the best player in the NFC at his position. The coaches feel the same way.
"We felt very strongly about Daunte because he's a tremendous competitor. He has a beautiful pass, has good velocity, but yet it's easy to catch. You don't see many guys drop his ball."
While Green looked like a prophet for the emergence of Culpepper, Fassel needed team success for his gutsy prediction to come through. He got it by handing the play calling to offensive coordinator Sean Payton, allowing Fassel to concentrate more on overall team unity.
And when the situation called for it, he made "The Guarantee," putting himself on the smallest, flimsiest limb he could find and jumping up and down on it. His words went something like this:
"You got the laser, you can put it right on my chest, I'm raising the stakes right now. If this is a poker game, I'm shoving my chips right in the middle of the table. I'm raising the ante.
"Anybody who wants out can get out. This team is going to the playoffs. OK? This team is going to the playoffs."
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The guarantee definitely brought us closer together because it showed that no matter what was happening on the field, he (Fassel) believed in us. ... He challenged us to go out there and get it done for him. It's guys like that you want to play for. ” |
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— Sam Garnes, Giants safety |
Since that speech, the Giants, who were notorious for their long-standing rift between the offense and defense, are preaching unity. They have gone 6-0 in that stretch, and Fassel, whose contract ends after the season, seems like a shoe-in for an extension.
"This is the most together we've been since I've been here," fourth-year safety Sam Garnes said. "The guarantee definitely brought us closer together because it showed that no matter what was happening on the field, he believed in us. He was willing to put it on the line for us.
"He couldn't go out there and win the games himself, so he challenged us to go out there and get it done for him. It's guys like that you want to play for."
Though Fassel has tried to convince the media that his risk-taking, tenacious personality was there all along, it's hard to believe. After all, this is a guy who the New York media referred to as "Mr. Rogers" for his preppy, bespectacled, Abercrombie-looking ways.
Still, Fassel insists he's been this way all along. Knowing that anything less than a trip to the playoffs would cost him his job this year, Fassel said the St. Louis and Detroit losses called for something to shake the team up.
"As much as anything, it challenged me," he said. "I was mad. I was angry. But I didn't look at other people and say, 'You gotta do this' or 'You gotta coach like that.' I took it upon myself to get things changed around. We had to do something.
"Maybe some people thought I panicked and lost my marbles and maybe they were right. I don't know. But I was just so focused, I couldn't think about anything else besides what I could do to get it turned around."
Green, who coached with Fassel at Stanford, admired his former co-worker's unwavering confidence under such difficult circumstances. And even though he stood behind Culpepper, he was unsure if he would have been able to make such a bold pronouncement.
"You always like a coach that knows what his team needs," Green said. "It doesn't mean he's always right, but when you put your name on the board -- 'I'm Jim Fassel, I say this' -- I think it's great for the game. I think Jim was fighting to get his program where he wanted it -- and it paid off."
Wayne Drehs is a staff writer for ESPN.com.
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