A little more than a month after he stepped down as coach of the Giants, Tom Coughlin wants to make one thing perfectly clear:
He’s not retired.
“I’m not,” he said Monday during an appearance on “Fox & Friends.” “I don’t like that word — you know, the ‘retired’ word.”
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That should’ve been clear by the way Coughlin pursued jobs with both the Philadelphia Eagles and the San Francisco 49ers in the days and weeks after he was essentially fired by the Giants. He eventually pulled his name out of consideration for both jobs for a variety of reasons, but those close to him have said all along that the 69-year-old is serious about coaching again.
And during his appearance to promote the Tom Coughlin Jay Fund, the long-time coach sounded like that’s exactly what he wanted. He said the last month hasn’t been easy. Apparently not having a team and not preparing for another season is not something he’s handling well at all.
“Not well, not very well, to be honest with you,” Coughlin said. “It’s a difficult thing; I don’t care who you are, or how long you’ve been doing it — (and) I’ve been doing it a long time. You get yourself into the rhythm. Your whole life, your calendar of your life is based on football, about the seasons. Whether it’s in season or out of season you have a schedule that you follow. So, there’s some adjusting for me to make.”
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Coughlin does still have an option to remain in the game and remain with the Giants for the 2016 season. Giants co-owner John Mara has said he’s offered Coughlin a job as a consultant, and after NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s Super Bowl press conference in San Francisco on Friday, Mara told the Daily News that he hopes to talk to Coughlin more about that in the next couple of weeks.
“He’s been away,” Mara said. “But I do plan on talking to him. There’s still hope.”
It’s not yet clear if Coughlin is interested in a consulting job or any other position in an NFL front office, or whether he’s still intent on coaching again in the future. The only thing clear is that he’s not the retiring type.
“I’m way too young for that,” he said, “you know what I mean?”