Former Giants Head Coach Jim Fassel Passes Away at 71

 Former New York Giants Head Coach Jim Fassel died Monday of a heart attack. He was 71. 

According to multiple reports, Fassel was admitted to a local hospital near Las Vegas after experiencing chest pains. He was said to have had a heart attack while under sedation. 

Fassel coached the Giants from1997-2003, reviving a once proud franchise that had seen some dark days in the mid-1990s, bringing them all the way back to a Super Bowl appearance in 2000 against the eventual champion Baltimore Ravens.  

Over his seven seasons patrolling the Giants Stadium sidelines Fassel went 58-53-1; won coach of the year honors his first year in 1997 after leading Big Blue to a 10-5-1 record and a wild card playoff berth against Minnesota. 

Some of his most significant wins as head coach included a 20-16 thriller against the 13-0 Denver Broncos at Giants Stadium in 1998, a 41-28 thrashing of the Jets in 1999 and of course Big Blue's 41-0 take-down of the Vikings in the NFC Championship game in 2000. 

 

Players like Michael Strahan, Tiki Barber, Armani Toomer, Ike Hillard, Jesse Armstead, and Kerry Collins all came into their own under Fassel's stewardship. Assistant coaches like John Fox and Sean Payton would later go on to success as head coaches elsewhere. It is easy to see why Fassel was regarded as the third greatest coach in Giants history behind Super Bowl winners Bill Parcells and Tom Coughlin. 

 

Unfortunately after leaving the Giants following a 4-12 season in 2003, Fassel never again got a head coaching opportunity in the NFL. He would join the Ravens in 2004 as an offensive consultant and was promoted to offensive coordinator in 2005, but the lack of success for the Ravens offense proved to be his undoing in Baltimore. He would never coach in the NFL again after that. 

Fassel's career in coaching goes all the way back as an assistant in the college ranks, namely as offensive coordinator at Stanford, where he had a quarterback named John Elway (you might of heard of him). 

Fassel would break into the NFL in 1992 with the Giants as an offensive coordinator, before moving to Denver in 1993 for the same post. 

The Giants would hire him as their head coach in 1997 after they considered bringing back Bill Parcells who was in the midst of a contract standoff with Robert Kraft and the New England Patriots. According to Parcells' biography by Nunyo DeMasio: "A Football Life: Bill Parcells," then GM George Young wouldn't approve of a Parcells-Big Blue reunion. At the last second the Giants decided to go with Fassel. Parcells would eventually land with the Jets that same off-season. 

Fassel's son, John has followed his fathers footsteps as an assistant. He was the Special Teams coach for the LA Rams for seven years from 2012-2019. He is currently the Dallas Cowboys special Teams coordinator. The younger Fassel did serve as an interim head coach with the Rams for three games.