Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

I've been watching some early '90's games recently and Ray Handley came to mind. Was wondering do you all think he was really as bad as coach as some people seem to think he was?

The Giants as an organization was just in a very rough place after their 1990 Super Bowl season. They were an aging team in a division with a Washington team that was just about ready to hit their peak, a Dallas team that was skyrocketing to the top, and a very solid Eagles program. It could probably be argued that the NFC East in '91 and '92 was as good as any division has ever been since the Super Bowl era started.

Sure Handley didn't help things at all but does he get undo blame for the Giants falling off so quickly after their 1990 Super Bowl? Would any coach of had trouble keeping them afloat in the division they were playing in at that time? When Reeves took over in '93 he guided them to an impressive 11-5 season but he struggled every other year as a Giants coach as well and the NFC East wasn't anywhere close to what it was when Reeves was coach as it was when Ray Handley was there.

He was put in a very tough position by Parcells' abrupt resignation just before mini-camps began, so he really had not time to prepare for the job. And I think he made a very bad mistake by choosing Hostetler over Simms. Hostetler threw just 5 TD passes in his 12 starts, while Simms threw for 8 TDs in 4 starts after Hostetler went down.

I seem to recall hearing vague references to rumors of some unspecified unsavory incident that happened when he was their coach. Anyone else recall that?

Shipley wrote:I seem to recall hearing vague references to rumors of some unspecified unsavory incident that happened when he was their coach. Anyone else recall that?

Just on the few articles I could find about him (he seemed to completely disappear from even the media after the '92 season) it didn't say anything about any one particular incident but just that there was a lot of infighting going on during the '92 season. Those kinds of things will ocurr though in a lot of locker rooms when the team is losing and the coach just needs to take control of the situation at that point.

In fairness to Handley strictly for '91, as rhickock said, he did take over a little too late into the off-season. A lot of close losses the G-men suffered that year. However, after lopsided victories over Redskins & Pack mid-season the following year to go 5-3, they lose 6-straight, each one convincingly. Bottom clearly fell out. Parcells admitted that he, pretty much, assumed his players would be able to motivate themselves for '87 coming off their SB triumph the year before. Had he stayed on another year, it's very likely he wouldn't make the same mistake again and those close losses that ended up happening likely become wins and a strong playoff berth. Considering just how much Gibbs struggled against Parcells' Giants in the '80s, it would have been interesting to see how that particular Washington juggernaut deals with an at-their-potential/Simms-at-QB G-men squad under Tuna in '91.

They did occasionally beat some good teams under Handley though- Chiefs and a surprise rout at RFK in '92, the Texas teams and San Fran in '91 (If anything, the Houston win on the final Saturday pretty much changed the entire AFC playoff picture)

Parcells has always struck me as the kind of captain who's the first guy on the lifeboat once the ship hits the iceberg. He knew how his team was happy to rest on their laurels after their first Super Bowl win. He knew the team had zero offense, and would struggle without Belichick. That was a team that was destined to stink up the joint, and he knew it.

Jeremy Crowhurst wrote:Parcells has always struck me as the kind of captain who's the first guy on the lifeboat once the ship hits the iceberg. He knew how his team was happy to rest on their laurels after their first Super Bowl win. He knew the team had zero offense, and would struggle without Belichick. That was a team that was destined to stink up the joint, and he knew it.

I have always gotten that impression as well from most of these coaches that have a habit of leaving abruptly and often after only a handful of years. They leave before they can get blamed for the downfall.

Parcells strenth as a coach was in turning teams around. Not at maintaining that success once they were already turned around. I think Jimmy Johnson was the same way in many ways and he left before he could get blamed for any future stumbles their maybe.