Sam Donnellon: Giants' Coughlin turns things - and opinions - around at right time

A FEW WEEKS AGO, in defending his decision to bring Andy Reid back for a 14th season as head coach, Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie emphasized that Reid has "the love of the players and their respect." He also mentioned that free agents want to play here not just because Reid has made "the tournament" in 9 of the last 12 years, but because he is a "coach that respects the players not in a soft way, but in a hard way."

Up the Jersey Turnpike, Tom Coughlin is being lionized again after two playoff victories have his team one victory away from another improbable Super Bowl appearance. But a month before, after a lifeless, 23-10 home loss to the last-place Redskins gave the Giants their fifth loss in six games and left them at 7-7, Coughlin again seemed on his way out of New York, poised to be fed to the lions, not named their king. His defense continually broke down and surrendered ill-timed big plays. His offense could not run the ball effectively. And again, as has occurred throughout his stormy tenure in New York, his issues with a prominent player seemed to suggest at least some of his team had quit on him.

Even before Tiki Barber complained in his book that Coughlin's calling-out style had taken the joy away and chased him from the game, Coughlin didn't always garner love, or respect. He battled Michael Strahan in the Super Bowl season. Benched during Coughlin's first season in New York, Kurt Warner was no fan. Earlier last month, when it again seemed Coughlin's departure was a foregone conclusion, Bill Barnwell, of Grantland.com, presented a year-by-year account of Big Blue mutinies since the coach took over in 2004.

"Guys absolutely hate Tom Coughlin," one player told the New York Post after Coughlin's first season. "He's not the type of coach we're going to go and put everything on the line for. Guys don't play for him; we play because we have to play, and you're not going to win that way."

Said another: "Honestly, they might as well fire him now. The players on this team have quit on him. That's a very strong word, but mark it down: This team has quit on him and quit really caring and quit listening to what Tom Coughlin has to say."

"We will not win here when he's the coach," said another.

This season, it was Antrel Rolle wishing publicly that the 65-year-old coach would "loosen up" as the team imploded after a 6-2 start. In late November, New York Daily News football columnist Gary Myers wrote, "Coughlin was so frustrated by the Giants' awful performance against the Eagles that he was pointing fingers without naming names."

Unlike Reid, Coughlin has tried to change. He met with reporters before the 2007 season and a better relationship ensued. He began the now-famous team bowling outings in an attempt to show his team a more human side, and that has undoubtedly won over some veterans. But he's still the fiery man who practically mugged punter Matt Dodge after he kicked to DeSean Jackson in December 2010, a play that aborted the same kind of late-season momentum his team has built in the last month. And when his teams play badly, they seem to always wear the appearance of a worn-out group.

After the Giants beat Dallas to make the playoffs on New Year's Day, Rolle told reporters he had a change of heart about his coach.

"Eventually you're going to get with his program," the safety said. "He's the boss man, and we're his soldiers, so you have to get with his program, and it works. Obviously, I was little stubborn at the time, but we're all on deck. That's coaches and players included."

It all begs the question: Is this good cop/bad cop stuff overrated? Did Eagles players really, suddenly - after a season full of fourth-quarter collapses, shoddy tackling, drops, fumbles and poor quarterback decisions - rally around a coach who never threw them under the bus? Or did they, as Lurie himself suggested, simply run into four teams over that last month that were in even worse condition than they were?

Bill Cowher was wound tighter than a golf ball. Jimmy Johnson and later Barry Switzer had no problem rolling a guy or two under a bus. They all won Super Bowls, something Reid has yet to do.

No doubt Tom Coughlin is a high-wire act. But maybe we have it all wrong. Maybe his team's ability to play spoiler every couple of years is not despite that, but because of it.

Just a thought.