Coughlin's new attitude helped Giants turn around

Tom Coughlin's Giants are 5-2 and facing the 0-7 Dolphins on Sunday in London. AP

During his first 11 years as an NFL head coach, Tom Coughlin did it one way. His way.

There were no democracies on his clubs. He was rigid and intolerant, demanding all that his players had to give, but offering little of his true self in return.

That formula worked for him in Jacksonville, where he guided the expansion Jaguars to the AFC title game in 1996 and a 14-2 record in 1999. But his three seasons with the New York Giants, from 2004 to '06, produced only one winning record and no playoff victories. Worse, Coughlin was being second-guessed and criticized for being too rigid in his ways.

Some family members told him in the offseason that it was time to lighten up. A team co-owner did the same thing. But it wasn't until the person staring back at him in the mirror said it was time to try something new that Coughlin relented.

Now, some of the same players who questioned his methods are praising his leadership. They contend his steadiness, open-mindedness and improved lines of communication are reasons why the Giants have won five in a row after back-to-back losses to open the season. They'll look to improve to 6-2 Sunday when they play winless Miami in London.

"When somebody says they're going to change, you always wonder, 'Well, are they just saying that because it's training camp or it's the offseason?' " center Shaun O'Hara said. "But when we were 0-2, he didn't change. He didn't revert back to the way he's always done things. I think as players that's the ultimate sacrifice. When we talk about putting egos aside, we're talking about a coach who has basically taken everything he's always done and said, 'OK, I'm going to change.' He almost reinvented himself.

"It's hard to pinpoint one thing that he did, but I think one of the biggest is that he was always very old school about his approach, very Lombardi like. He had to be Scrooge. I think he has learned now that the players in this day and age respond better to a coach who is a little bit more -- I don't want to say soft -- but who is interested and willing to take the time to get to know the players, to talk to them a little bit, who doesn't have the tunnel vision and doesn't look through the straw and [say] go, go, go. It's being a little more human."

Coughlin chuckled at the characterization.

"What I've done is let them see me as I really am, the good and the bad," he said last Sunday after the Giants' 33-15 victory over visiting San Francisco. "They've gotten a dose of what I can be like in the good and the bad times. They're seeing who I am first-hand, and they're also seeing a little more patience on my part. I'm not so quick to fly off the handle about things, but rather to listen a little bit better."

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