New York Giants head coach Pat Shurmur let Tom Coughlin know when he decided to bench quarterback Eli Manning prior to Week 3.
The New York Giants are planning to move forward with a new quarterback; one not named Eli Manning. For the first time since 2004 (with the exception of that one 2017 game with Geno Smith), Manning isn’t the guy leading the Giants offense. Now, it’s rookie Daniel Jones‘ team, and the organization plans on it staying that way for years to come.
Head coach Pat Shurmur chose to make the switch prior to their Week 3 game against the Tampa Bay Buccanneers. When he made the inevitable decision, Shurmur wanted to inform former Big Blue head coach Tom Coughlin. The current VP of football operations for the Jacksonville Jaguars deserved to know. After all, he is Eli’s “guy.”
“Pat Shurmur actually said to me, ‘He’s your guy and I wanted you to know that I had a very difficult thing today,'” Coughlin said on Friday at the 15th annual Tom Coughlin Jay Fund gala, per Zach Braziller of the New York Post. “And I told Pat, ‘Yeah, he is my guy, and guess what? He’ll always be my guy.'”
Coughlin and Manning were together from 2004 through the end of the 2015 season. Those 12 years included numerous winning seasons, numerous losing seasons, and two Super Bowl titles. But now, Manning is aging, has a new head coach, and his successor is on the roster. Shurmur felt he needed to make the move and let Coughlin know about it in the process.
“He was his coach and it was a move that we made,” Shurmur said. “I felt it was the right thing to do to call. Tom and I have a great relationship. We’ve become friends in the profession. It was just one of those things. Eli and Tom are forever connected. They won two Super Bowls together. When you make a move like that, it was out of respect.”
Jones is heading into his second career start this Sunday when the Giants take on the Washington Redskins at home. Big Blue, led by Jones, defeated Tampa Bay last week by a score of 32-31.
