Tom Coughlin Rewarded with a Four-Year, $21 Million Contract

Tom Coughlin has reportedly agreed to a four-year, $21 million dollar contract with the New York Giants.

Coughlin’s deal represents a $2 million increase over last season’s salary, bringing his yearly salary to $5.25 million.

It is hard to believe that just five months ago, fans and the New York media alike were calling for the Giants to fire Coughlin.

Although on the surface it appears that Coughlin’s large new contract was due primarily to the Giants Super Bowl victory, Coughlin has been a lot more successful in New York than people give him credit for.

The Giants are one of only four teams in the NFL to have made the playoffs the past three seasons in a row.

Coughlin was brought in four years ago to bring discipline to a largely undisciplined football team. He succeeded at that task in his first two seasons.

His hard-nosed, disciplinarian persona came under criticism last year by many players. So, this past season Coughlin created a "Leadership Council" to consult with him on all major decisions and keep him abreast of the general pulse of the team.

Coughlin’s idea of a "Leadership Council" was praised by players such as Michael Strahan and Eli Manning, and brought a general calm to a locker room that was anything but placid last season.

In the week leading up to the Giants' final game of the regular season against the New England Patriots, no one knew if Coughlin would decide to play the team’s starters or rest them and avoid the risk of a key player getting injured leading up to the playoffs.

The Giants had absolutely nothing to gain by beating the Patriots, other than foiling their perfect regular season record. The Giants had already clinched a playoff spot and a win would not gain the team home-field advantage in the first round.

But Coughlin’s never-back-down attitude took over, and the Giants came out playing extremely aggressively from the opening kickoff.

Now, no one quite knows how long Tom Coughlin had originally intended to play the starters or if his original game plan was swayed by the team’s early success against the Patriots.

Either way, Coughlin’s decision to play his starters against the Patriots would prove to be the key to the Giants' season.

Although the Giants were defeated by the Patriots in that game, it gave the team the confidence they had been lacking all season. The Giants' performance against the Patriots allowed the Giants to truly believe that they could play with the best teams in the league. This confidence drove them right through the playoffs and to an eventual Super Bowl victory.

Coughlin surely received a larger contract due to the Giants' Super Bowl victory. But, the Giants would have offered him a new contract either way.

With all the criticism directed towards Coughlin—albeit some of it warranted—the facts don’t lie. The facts are that during his four-year stint with New York, Coughlin has led the team to three playoff appearances, a NFC East Championship, and a Super Bowl victory.

There are not many NFL coaches that have a better track record than Coughlin over the past four years.