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Guarantee of no more guarantees Fassel vows to keep mouth shut leading up to Super Bowl
Updated: Monday January 22, 2001 8:36 AM
TAMPA, Fla. -- Looking back, Jim Fassel swears he wasn't trying to create legend or lore. The only two L's he was focused on were the back-to-back defeats that had just been added to his team's record, watering down its 7-2 start. But in time, everything that Fassel and his New York Giants accomplish this season will be boiled down to one neat little pre-packaged story line. There will be the playoff guarantee, and there will be little else. Can there be any doubt? Fassel's pledge already has been over-dramatized more than a made-for-TV movie. But that's OK. That's the way we like it in America. Give us a dose of steely-eyed bravado, and the chance to witness either spectacular success or flaming failure. Either way, it makes the viewing so much more interesting. And just ask Joe Namath about how much mileage -- 32 years and counting -- you can get out of a promise delivered in New York. Fassel got to tell it all over again in graphic detail Sunday night when the Giants hit town for the first of their six Super Bowl XXXV media sessions. How in a three-minute rambling monologue of mixed metaphors and tortured cliches he managed to administer the Heimlich maneuver to an entire 53-man team choking on its own expectations. 
The story is almost two months old, but then, so is New York's resulting seven-game winning streak. And therein lies the beauty of Fassel's gambit. "I weighed them [both], but I was only interested in the positives," said Fassel, the fourth-year New York head coach. "I wasn't afraid of the negatives. People say, 'Well, your job was at stake any how.' That's a bunch of crap." To hear Fassel talk about his Nov. 22 promise that the 7-4 Giants were going to the playoffs, you get the distinct feeling that he loves the swagger that has been added to his reputation. The John Wayne role is rather new to the bespectacled Fassel. In the eyes of many, his boast fit his personality about the way a muscle shirt would fit his tall, wiry frame. "Outside the locker room, because he has the look of an accountant, people would probably say he should be crunching numbers instead of making speeches like that," Giants defensive end Michael Strahan said Sunday. "But he made the speech, and hey, the rest is history. He's looking like Joe Namath in New York right now." Fassel's words, of course, had as much chance to be self-immolating as self-fulfilling. Many of the same players that are now hailing his gutsy move were dubious when they first heard media reports of what he had said after consecutive home losses to St. Louis and Detroit. "When I first heard it, I said, 'What'd you say that for?'" Strahan said. "I was like, 'Oh, OK. The guy's running his mouth and maybe got a little excited. Who knows?' But I think he knew what he was doing, and the second he said it, I think we as players put it on ourselves to try and make it happen."
To actually go back and read the text of Fassel's statement to the media that day is almost painful. The Giants have reprinted it verbatim on the inside flap of the team's Super Bowl media guide. Fassel was struggling so hard to paint an image of a riverboat gambler that he almost drowned in his own verbiage. He conjured up allusions to a train conductor, a bus driver and a jockey, while talking of raising the stakes and putting the crosshairs or the laser firmly on his chest. For a guy who maintains it was all about instilling confidence, he sounded down right desperate. "I didn't do it for any other reason but that was what was in my gut," Fassel said. "I needed to give my team confidence and some fight, and I needed to give them a direction and get the pressure off everybody. "The bottom line with me is as a coach you've got to know your team. It wasn't calculated. I didn't think about that when the season began: 'Now with five games to go I'm going to make some guarantee.' That was my feelings after the Detroit game." Whether you think Fassel's oratory was all hype or hot air, one thing can't be quibbled with: something worked. New York's surprising drive to the Super Bowl started that day, with the Giants' mild-mannered Clark Kent ripping off his glasses and windbreaker to reveal Supercoach. Chances are it shocked the Giants out of their lethargy and gave them a cause larger than their own. "We didn't know he'd do it," New York safety Shaun Williams said. "But I think that's the best thing he could have done for our team and organization. I don't think we'd be here if he wouldn't have made that guarantee. It rejuvenated our team." Who could have ever dreamed it? In the course of a football season, a head coach makes literally thousands of decisions that affect every facet of his team. Some big, some small. In New York, the one that really mattered this season was Fassel's decision to go Namath on everybody. And if you're wondering, no, he's not going to go there again this week. Even if the backdrop of a New York team once again playing Baltimore in the Super Bowl is just too perfect to ignore. "No, I'm done," Fassel said quietly. "I've never made a guarantee like that before. Coaches don't really make guarantees." Ah, but it happened once upon a time in New York. And Fassel's Super Bowl Giants are the fairy tale that resulted. Don Banks covers pro football for CNNSI.com.
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