Tom Coughlin
(Photo by Brett Carlsen/Getty Images)

Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Doug Marrone gave credit for this ongoing successful season to former New York Giants head man Tom Coughlin.

The Jacksonville Jaguars have had an unexpectedly successful season, as they will play the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship game.

While Doug Marrone has gotten a lot of credit for that, he shifted the credit to former New York Giants coach Tom Coughlin, according to Dan Schneier at CBS Sports.

“I’ve leaned on coach (Coughlin) pretty good from Day 1,” Marrone told reporters on Wednesday. “So, I don’t think I can lean on him anymore because I’m a big guy and if I lean on him it might hurt him a little bit. … it’s been the same way since Day 1 when we started working together. When you say lean on him, I’ve leaned on him quite a bit. We work the same amount of time together and talk about the same things.”

Coughlin has made his mark on the Jaguars already, improving the defense and running game, while surely being happy to have more success than the Giants have had. Coughlin was fired after 12 seasons as the Giants head coach, winning two Super Bowls over the Patriots during his tenure. He was removed as a scapegoat for Jerry Reese’s failure to build a strong roster, with some feeling that his message had grown stale.

The first season under Ben McAdoo was successful, with the team winning 11 games and making the playoffs. However, the wheels fell off big time during the second year of the post-Coughlin era.

The team won three games, Eli Manning was benched for a game, Landon Collins called Eli Apple a cancer, and McAdoo and Reese were replaced with Pat Shurmur (that won’t be made official until the Vikings are out of the playoffs, but it is expected to be announced soon after their season ends) and Dave Gettleman.

The Giants appear to be missing Coughlin who has turned the Jaguars into a contender in only one season. The team will have to hope that Shurmur is the man to turn the franchise around.

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