Players: Coughlin more than just a coach

INDIANAPOLIS -- Tom Coughlin famously underwent a personality facelift for the 2007 season, letting down some of his fabled guard, relaxing some of his rules, and becoming a friendlier person with his players. The team won a Super Bowl.

So why not try it again?

Coughlin has been relaxed, funny, gregarious, entertaining . . . all adjectives that rarely are used to describe his demeanor. Even Wednesday, four days before the Super Bowl, he was chuckling at the absurdity of the questions -- and questioners -- he experienced at media day earlier in the week.

"I was OK until that guy came over in the Adventureman suit and the other guy who had the number and leather helmet," Coughlin said. "Actually, that guy looked pretty good in that helmet." It appears that Colonel Tom has turned into a warm and fuzzy football coach.

"Warmer? Fuzzier? I don't know if I'd use those adjectives," said Chris Snee, Coughlin's starting right guard and also his son-in-law. "But he's lightened up a lot and we made reference to that four years ago when we were here."

Justin Tuck said the key to Coughlin is knowing when it's time to joke and when it's time to work. "What I've learned from him for being around him for seven years is when he's all about football he's all about football, but there's more than that side to him," Tuck said. "He's a mentor. He's more of a father figure at times."

Coughlin said the biggest thing that has changed for him since he was the drill sergeant in Jacksonville is his level of patience. But even that has its limits. He's shown signs of frustration at being asked repeat questions this week.

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In the meantime, Coughlin has managed to forge close relationships with players whom he doesn't always see eye-to-eye. Safety Antrel Rolle said this week that he finally started to get Coughlin when he realized what the purpose of his rules and structures were.

"I used to always wonder, I felt like he was always trying to turn us into men," Rolle said. "Does he not know that we are men before we ever step on the football field here as a Giant? I used to ask myself questions like that. Once I matured enough and I took a step back, he's not trying to turn us into men. He's trying to help us become better men."

Running back Brandon Jacobs joked about his relationship with Coughlin. "I'm like the stepson of coach Coughlin," he said. "He's got all these other guys on the team who don't really do too much, they kind of stick to themselves . . . You can't have all perfect kids. It's not a perfect world. You have to have one bad one."

But even the bad one sees the good.

"[Since] I first came to coach Coughlin in 2005, he's pulled back a lot," Jacobs said. "And even going through the stuff we went through this year, he's pulled back a lot. He's let us play. He's done a great job to be a man who has believed in one thing for 60-something years and then to turn around and change for the better of his football players and be able to have people want to hang around and play for him and get them to this point where we are now."