The New York Giants have spent the better part of the last decade chasing the next hot coordinator, hoping to stumble into an up-and-coming genius who could reinvent the wheel in East Rutherford. Instead, they came away with two winning seasons in 11 years, routinely looking like one of the most lost teams in football.
But the moment John Harbaugh stepped into the building, the energy changed. For the first time in years, there's an adult in the room, and you can already feel the difference in the sheer intensity of this first training camp.
Giants fans are already telling themselves that Harbaugh is the second coming of Bill Parcells or Tom Coughlin -- the kind of tough-love, culture-first savior this franchise seems to always thrive under. But while we’re all getting lost in the sauce of making comparisons to former Giants greats, The Athletic’s Michael Silver threw out a few other names that will make the Harbaugh hire feel even more encouraging
The John Harbaugh parallels go well beyond Giants legends
Silver took things a step further by comparing Harbaugh to champions outside of the NFL. He put his expectations for the Giants' culture change like this:
"When a true pro enters the building and lays out his vision, it tends to be eye-opening. Before too long, I expect we’ll all be able to see the difference."
He went on to say that, to him, the Harby hire feels exactly like Phil Jackson going back to the Lakers in 2005 or Sean Payton saving the Broncos in 2023.
Those are some pretty awesome parallels to draw, mostly because of what happened after those guys took over. When Jackson walked back onto the Lakers' bench after stepping away for a year, he didn't magically hand Kobe Bryant and Co. a trophy on day one.
The Lakers went 45-37, then 42-40, slowly purging the bad habits of the post-Shaq collapse. It took him three years -- when they went 57-25 and won the Western Conference -- for his culture reset to take. LA would then go on to win back-to-back Finals in the following two seasons.
Something very similar happened with Sean Payton in Denver. After sitting out a year, Payton took over a Broncos team that had lost its way in the post-Peyton Manning era. They went 8-9 in his first year, followed by a postseason-worthy 10-7 campaign. It wasn't until his third season, a stunning 14-3 run ending in the AFC Championship Game, that Sean had Denver looking like Denver again.
This stuff doesn't happen overnight. Even Harbaugh himself, who won a ton of games early with the Baltimore Ravens, didn't actually break through and win his Super Bowl until his fifth season.
Building a championship program is a game of millimeters, built bit by bit, which is why hiring a 63-year-old master builder is a way better route than hiring an unproven coordinator who's going through a trial by fire.
If training camp is any indication, the foundation is already being poured. It might take a season or two of hard coaching to really work out the kinks, but that’s kind of the point. Jackson didn’t fix the Lakers overnight. Payton didn’t fix the Broncos overnight.
Even Parcells and Coughlin needed time to build their Giants teams into champions. Harbaugh doesn’t need to be the second coming of any one of them. He just needs to remind everyone why hiring the proven guy worked so well in the first place.
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