Why Giants coach Pat Shurmur gave Tom Coughlin a heads-up on QB change
Giants head coach Pat Shurmur speaks with the media after practice on Sept. 18, 2019. Credit: James Escher
When Pat Shurmur made the call to bench Eli Manning and replace him with Daniel Jones a little more than a week ago, there were a lot of people to tell.
The quarterbacks, obviously. The team’s owners and the general manager. A decision like that requires a lot of communication.
One of the people Shurmur reached out to tell directly was someone who currently works for another team.
He told Tom Coughlin.
“Eli and Tom are forever connected,” Shurmur said of that dispatch to the current executive vice president of football operations for the Jaguars. “They won two Super Bowls together. When you make a move like that, it was just done out of respect.”
Shurmur was honored at the 15th annual Tom Coughlin Jay Fund Champions for Children Gala in Manhattan on Friday night, which gave the former and current head coaches of the Giants some face-to-face time. It also allowed them to discuss Shurmur’s decision publicly.
“He knows he has my 100 percent support,” Coughlin said of Manning. “I knew when this happened that he would handle it with class and dignity and he will help the young guy just like Kurt Warner helped him. That’s what Eli is.”
Coughlin also got a better glimpse of what Shurmur is.
“[Shurmur] actually said to me, ‘He’s your guy and I wanted you to know that I had a very difficult [decision] today,’ ” Coughlin said. “I told Pat, ‘Yeah, he is my guy. And guess what? He’ll always be my guy.’ ”
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
