A HIRE STANDARD
Shurmur officially named Giants’ new head coach
The Giants did not need a second meeting with Pat Shurmur to know they wanted him to be the 18th head coach in franchise history. And so, when a winter storm prevented Shurmur from getting out of Minneapolis, they hired him over the phone, making the five-year deal official Monday.
The original plan was for this to be all done in person, on Tuesday, but more than a foot of snow from a Midwest blast forced a new plan of action. Rather than put on a suit for an introductory press conference, Shurmur will get right to work, heading to Mobile. Ala. on Tuesday — weather permitting — to meet up with new general manager Dave Gettleman to study the top prospects at the Senior Bowl.
Shurmur will not be formally introduced as the new head coach until Friday.
“We are pleased to welcome Pat to our organization and look forward to the leadership he will provide for our team,” co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch said in a statement. “He has an outstanding track record in developing young players, and it is clear his players respond to his guidance and direction. We interviewed six talented and qualified candidates, and we feel like Pat, with his vision and experience, is the right person to lead our team.”
Shurmur, 52, is tasked with turning around a franchise that bottomed out with the most losses (13) in a season in its 92-year history. He leaves his position as the Vikings offensive coordinator, experiencing the lows and highs of a coaching career. The Vikings on Sunday night were thrashed by the Eagles 38-7 in the NFC Championship game, denying Shurmur a Super Bowl appearance. Less than 24 hours later, he was named the Giants’ coach.
“I want to thank John Mara and Steve Tisch for giving me the opportunity to be the head coach of the New York Giants,” Shurmur said. “I am looking forward to getting to work with Dave Gettleman and Kevin Abrams and starting the process to once again build a championship team.”
This is Shurmur’s second head-coaching gig. He went 9-23 in two years (2011 and 2012) in Cleveland before he was fired amid an ownership change. He has 19 years of NFL coaching experience and rose through the ranks for his ability to work with quarterbacks and orchestrate multiple and varied offenses.
The move to Shurmur comes barely more than two years after the Giants saw fit to make a coaching change, ushering out Tom Coughlin — a man whose Super Bowl victories added two Lombardi trophies to the glass-enclosed case — to replace him with Coughlin’s offensive coordinator, Ben McAdoo, a 38year old with no previous head-coaching experience.
McAdoo went 11-5 in his first season and ended a four-year stretch out of the playoffs, but failed to duplicate that success in year No. 2. The Giants in 2017 lost their first five games, were ravaged by injuries — they lost star receiver Odell Beckham Jr. in Week 5 — and struggled through suspensions and repeated offensive meltdowns. The Week 13 benching of Eli Manning — ending his streak of 210 consecutive starts — and the inevitability that a regime change was imminent prompted ownership on Dec. 4 to fire McAdoo and general manager Jerry Reese.
This is the first time in 38 years the Giants will enter a season with a new general manager and new head coach — George Young and Ray Perkins in 1979 marked the most recent time this franchise made such sweeping change. Shurmur will no doubt command a much different roster than the one McAdoo put on the field in 2017. The Giants hope the results are drastically different, as well.
“I can’t wait to start working with Pat,” Gettleman said. “I know he will provide the type of leadership we need to take our team back to where it belongs.”