New York Giants

Inaugural season: 1925

Home field: MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, New Jersey

Owner: John Mara and Steve Tisch

Team colors: Dark blue, red, white

Overview

The New York Giants are an American football team that plays in the East division of the National Football Conference (NFC) of the National Football League (NFL). The team is one of the oldest professional football franchises, having been established in 1925.

The Giants have one of the most storied histories in the NFL. They have eight league championships overall, including four Super Bowl wins. Between 1925 and 2023, the Giants were a combined 721–649–34 in the regular season and 25–26 in the postseason.

Tim Mara, the team’s first owner, paid $500 for the team’s franchise rights in 1925, although he personally invested another $25,000 in the team that allowed it to remain afloat. While professional football very much took a backseat to the more popular sport of baseball, the Mara family oversaw the continued success of the team throughout the twentieth century, giving the NFL an important continuous presence in the country’s largest media market. During the Maras’ lengthy term of ownership, football emerged in the late twentieth century as the preeminent American sport and Mara’s initial investment paid off. In 2023, Forbes ranked the New York Giants as the fourth most valuable NFL team. In terms of overall financial value, the Giants were estimated to be worth $6.8 billion. The Mara family continued a nearly century-long connection to the team as owners in the twenty-first century. Giants fans remained extraordinarily loyal, with the team’s 2023 attendance ranking third in the NFL despite a losing record.

History

The legal name of the team is the New York Football Giants, which was provided for them by the team’s initial owner, Tim Mara. The reason for the longer name was due to the presence of a New York Giants baseball team. As was relatively common in the era, Mara specifically named his Giants after the baseball-playing team in part to piggyback on their pre-existing name brand. As a testament to the enduring legacy of Mara’s Giants to New York, the football Giants would outlast the baseball team, which moved to California in 1957 to become the San Francisco Giants.

Although the football team enjoyed early success, the lack of an existing fan base caused the Giants to initially struggle to fill the seats at the New York Polo Grounds, their first home field. It was not until Red Grange came to town in a legendary game that fans showed the size of the potential fan base in New York. On December 6, 1925, seventy thousand people flocked to see Grange’s Bears beat the hometown Giants 19–7. The Giants returned the favor in Chicago a week later to finish 8–4 in their inaugural season.

The Giants continued their winning streak throughout the 1920s and early 1930s, managing a winning record in nine of their first eleven seasons. These successful origins were punctuated by a 13–1–1 record in 1930 and a League Championship in 1934. In 1931, the team hired player Steve Owen, who had started with the Giants in 1926, to also coach the team. Like many coaches of the era, his elevation to coach did not end his playing career, and he remained as player-coach for the 1930, 1931, and 1933 seasons. He would serve as the team’s coach until 1953, overseeing one of the most consistent and successful eras of the team. Ultimately, Owen would retire from the Giants with a 151–100–17 record, eight playoff appearances, and two League Championships—the second coming in the 1938 season. After a 3–8 season in 1953, Owen was fired as coach.

The remainder of the 1950s and 1960s saw the Giants remain a league contender under the stewardship of coaches Jim Lee Howell (1954–1960) and Allie Sherman (1961–1969). Together, the two men went a combined 116–86–8, with appearances in the League Championship game in 1958, 1959, 1961, 1962, and 1963, and a third title in 1956. Sherman became the first coach to hire African Americans for his coaching staff with the additions of former players Emlen Tunell and Rosey Brown in 1965 and 1966 respectively.

After Sherman was relieved of duties a week before the start of the 1970 season, the Giants began a long playoff drought with few team highlights to speak of between 1970 and 1983. In addition, the Giants became highly nomadic and called four different fields home over a span stretching from 1957 to 1976. The Giants played at Yankee Stadium from 1957–1973; the Yale Bowl from 1973–1974 in New Haven, Connecticut; Shea Stadium in 1975; and Giants Stadium beginning in 1976. Although Giants Stadium was technically located in East Rutherford, New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, the team retained the New York name.

For decades, the Giants had been a model of coaching consistency. Between 1931 and 1969, the team had only three coaches. By contrast, over the period stretching from 1970 to 1983, when Bill Parcells again brought a level of coaching stability, the Giants had four coaches. This was in large part due to the disappointing on-the-field results for a team that had previously consistently been among the top tier of the league. In particular, a record of 22–49 between 1971 and 1976 frustrated both fans and the Giants ownership alike. Parcells not only returned the team to respectability during his tenure, he also led it to its first two Super Bowl wins in 1986 and 1990. In 1991, Parcells voluntarily retired to take advantage of broadcasting opportunities.

His successor, Ray Handley, was unable to maintain Parcells’s success and lasted only two seasons. He was replaced by Dan Reeves, who took the team to a single playoff appearance in 1993 before being fired after the 1996 season. Handley and Reeves were a combined 50–51 with one playoff loss. In 1997, new coach Jim Fassel in his first season coached the Giants to the playoffs, where after mishandling an onside kick they lost to the Minnesota Vikings 23–22 in the waning seconds of the home game. After regressing to an 8–8 record in the 1998 season and 7–9 in 1999, the Giants returned to the playoffs in 2000, eventually reaching the Super Bowl, where they lost to the Baltimore Ravens 34–7. Although Fassel was able to take the Giants to one more playoff in 2002, the lack of consistent success doomed him, and he was fired after the 2003 season.

His successor was Tom Coughlin, the former coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Coughlin immediately drafted Eli Manning, the younger brother of Indianapolis Colts star Peyton and son of Archie, a star quarterback for the New Orleans Saints. Behind the combined talents of Manning, running back Tiki Barber, and tight end Jeremy Shockey, Coughlin rebuilt the Giants’ offense into a formidable force. The team made the playoffs in four consecutive seasons between 2005 and 2008. The highlight of this era was an upset 17–14 win over the heavily favored New England Patriots in the 2007 Super Bowl. Another unlikely upset win over the Patriots in the 2011 Super Bowl gave the Giants their fourth Super Bowl title overall. Despite these victories, Coughlin was unable to build a team that could win consistently during the regular season, only crossing the ten-win threshold twice in a twelve-year career.

After three consecutive third-place finishes in the NFC East and four seasons without making the playoffs, Coughlin resigned under pressure after the 2015 season. His replacement, Ben McAdoo, took the Giants to the playoffs in his first season, but after starting 2–10 in his second season, he was replaced for the remainder of the season by his assistant Steve Spagnuolo. Spagnuolo’s contract was not picked up for the 2018 season and Pat Shurmur, the offensive coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings, was chosen to fill the vacancy. Missing many of the important pieces required for a successful team, Shurmur was only able to record a 5–11 season in 2018. A period of instability followed in which the Giants were unable to settle on a long-term head coach, but the hiring of head coach Brian Daboll for the 2022 season resulted in the first winning record for the franchise since 2016 as well as its first playoff win in more than ten years. For his efforts, Daboll won the 2022 Associated Press NFL Coach of the Year Award.

Notable Players

The Giants have had more than thirty players enter the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Among the most famous of these were quarterback Benny Friedman (who played for the Giants from 1929–1931), who led the Giants to thirty-three wins in his three seasons with the team; quarterback Y. A. Tittle (1961–1964), who was a three-time Pro Bowler while playing for the Giants; quarterback Fran Tarkenton (1967–1971), who threw for 47,003 yards during his NFL career; fullback Tuffy Leemans (1936–1943), a two-way player who led the NFL in rushing in his rookie campaign; offensive lineman Rosey Brown (1953–1965), a nine-time Pro Bowler; halfback Ken Strong (1933–1935, 1939, 1944–1947), who played offense, defense, and served as the team’s kicker; and center Mel Hein (1931–1945), who was named as an All-Pro eight consecutive seasons.

On the defensive side of the ball, Hall of Fame honorees include Emlen Tunnell (1948–1958), one of the most dynamic defensive backs of the 1950s; linebacker Harry Carson (1976–1988), who spent the entirety of his thirteen-year career with the Giants; Michael Strahan (1993–2007) the Giants’ all-time leader in sacks; and linebacker Lawrence Taylor (1981–1993), one of only two defensive players to be named as the NFL’s MVP.

Others including quarterbacks Phil Simms (1979–1993) and Eli Manning (2004–2019); running backs Rodney Hampton (1990–1997) and Tiki Barber (1997–2006); wide receiver Amani Toomer (1996–2008); tight end Jeremey Shockey (2002–2007); defensive end Justin Tuck (2005–2013); and defensive tackle Rosey Grier (1955–1962), are remembered by fans as team greats.

Bibliography

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Barca, Jerry. Big Blue Wrecking Crew: Smashmouth Football, a Little Bit of Crazy, and the ’86 Super Bowl Champion New York Giants. St. Martin’s Press, 2016.

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Parsaud, Andrew. "Giants Had Third-Best Regular-Season Attendance last Season." Sports Illustrated, 25 Feb. 2024, www.si.com/nfl/giants/news/giants-had-third-best-regular-season-attendance-last-season. Accessed 6 Mar. 2024.

Rock, Tom. Miracle Moments in New York Giants Football History: Best Plays, Games, and Records. Sports Publishing, 2019.

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Shull, Jeff. “New York Giants: Top 50 Players of All Time.” Bleacher Report, 9 Jun. 2014, bleacherreport.com/articles/740393-new-york-giants-top-50-players-of-all-time#slide0. Accessed 24 July 2019.

“#4 New York Giants.” Forbes, August 2023, www.forbes.com/teams/new-york-giants/. Accessed 6 Mar. 2024.