Giants say former coach Ray Handley has died

Former Giants coach Ray Handley died last week, the team announced on social media. He was 81.

The post said Handley’s nephew confirmed his death; FanSided had previously reported a Facebook post by the nephew announcing his uncle’s death.

Handley became a punchline in New York football history thanks in large part to being in the wrong place at the wrong time when Bill Parcells resigned in May 1991 after leading the Giants to a second Super Bowl win a few months earlier.

Bill Belichick had just become the Cleveland Browns’ coach (plus he had a poor relationship with Giants GM George Young) and Tom Coughlin had recently taken over at Boston College. So the gig went to Handley, who had been the team’s offensive backfield coach and had never been a coordinator, much less a head coach.

Handley led the Giants to a Week 1 win over the San Francisco 49ers in his debut, but it went downhill from there. He struggled mightily to handle the tricky difficult post-Super Bowl quarterback situation involving Jeff Hostetler and Phil Simms, famously storming out of a press conference after being pressed on the matter by Channel 9’s Russ “The Sweater” Salzberg*.

Issues with the media were a trend for Handley, who also failed to control his locker room. The Giants went 8-8 and missed the playoffs in 1991 after losing three of their last four games; they then stumbled to a 6-10 finish in 1992 and Handley was fired.

Handley never coached again at any level and did not associate with the Giants in any way despite being a member of two championship teams, living a private life in Nevada. A Newsday reporter tracked him down in 2008, but he refused to do an interview.

* — It’s funny that Salzberg, now a Giants-employed shill, was the guy making Handley put the hard hat on. If a similar situation happened today, Salzberg would likely attack the media member who asked the question on one of his “Get A Load Of This” podcasts.