The dream run ended with a thud. Facing the Baltimore Ravens in Super Bowl XXXV, the Giants fell into a 17-0 hole and did not score an offensive touchdown in a crushing 34-7 loss, their only defeat in five Super Bowl appearances.
“It was the best defense I ever coached against,” Fassel said. “We had a hard time blocking them, even running routes on them. They had a bunch of guys in their prime on that defensive unit. I remember talking to Jon Gruden (whose Raiders lost to Baltimore in the AFC Championship Game). He said, ‘Jim, what they look like on tape, they’re 10 times better than that.'”
In 2001, the Giants lost five of their last seven games and slumped to 7-9. But football was only part of the job that season for Fassel, who was at the forefront of the Giants’ efforts to help New York recover from the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
“(Former Mayor Rudy) Giuliani’s office asked me if I would come over and just walk around and shake the hands and tell them that we’re supporting all these guys,” Fassel said. “I went over there three or four days afterward and it was unbelievable. You’re standing there and this space is just wide open. I asked them, ‘What am I going to do?’ They said, ‘You can cheer them up. People recognize you, you can just support them.’ So I did. And it did work. That’s how I first got involved with some firemen. Even the ones from out-of-state, mainly some from California recognized me and I stopped and talked to them. Those guys looked like they hadn’t slept in days, they were dirty. I was just saying, ‘Thanks guys for what you’re doing here.’ You try to do a little something for them.”
In 2002, an overtime loss at home to Tennessee dropped the Giants to 6-6 and had the fans calling for Fassel’s head. But as they had done two years before, the Giants got hot down the stretch, winning their final four games. A victory over Philadelphia on the season’s final weekend clinched a wild card playoff berth.
But once again, the postseason ended in catastrophe. The Giants traveled to San Francisco for a wild card game and soared to a 38-14 lead. But they never scored again and fell, 39-38, when a snap on a potential game-winning field goal attempt was low. The Giants tried to salvage the play with the fire drill they practiced for such an occasion, but the officials declined to throw a flag when Rich Seubert was interfered with trying to catch what could have been a touchdown pass.
“I was really upset with that one,” Fassel said. “The ball goes underground and the players executed perfectly – ‘Fire, fire, fire’ call. Everybody blocks, the two guys release, the kicker rolls out to the right, throws it to (Seubert) him and the guy tackles him. A flag comes and I’m thinking, ‘They got it right and we’ll get another chance from the one-yard line.’ Then they called illegal receiver downfield. How do you miss that? That’s not a judgment, that is somebody not paying attention, just absolute stupidity.”
The following year, the Giants were 4-4 and two games out of the NFC East lead at midseason. But they lost their next game by 20 points at home to the Atlanta Falcons, a defeat that ignited a season-ending eight-game losing streak. On Dec. 17, after the sixth loss, Fassel and the Giants jointly announced he would not return to the team in 2004.
Fassel’s regular-season record was 58-53-1 (.522) and 2-3 in the postseason. His 58 victories place him behind Steve Owen (153), Coughlin (102) and Bill Parcells (77) among Giants coaches. Owen and Parcells are Hall of Famers and Parcells and Coughlin each won a pair of Super Bowls.
Fassel coached some of the most prominent and greatest players in Giants history, including Hall of Fame defensive end Michael Strahan, the franchise leaders in rushing yards (Tiki Barber) and receptions (Amani Toomer), five-time Pro Bowl linebacker Jessie Armstead and quarterback Kerry Collins, whose five touchdown passes in the 2000 NFC Championship Game are a franchise postseason record.
After Fassel departed the Giants, it was widely assumed he would secure another head coaching job, but several interviews failed to produce an offer. In 2004, he was hired as a consultant by the Ravens and the following year was named their offensive coordinator. But Baltimore’s offense remained ranked in the bottom third of the league and early in the 2006 season he had an unpleasant parting with head coach Brian Billick, who had been one of his closest friends.
After leaving Baltimore, Fassel spent two seasons as an NFL game analyst for Westwood One radio. But coaching was still in his blood. So in 2009, he became the head coach, general manager and president of the Las Vegas Locomotives of the now-defunct United Football League.
“We won the first two championships, we were in the championship game all three years and then the last year we were undefeated,” Fassel said. “We had a good team. And I loved it, I loved that. It was a lot easier than being a head coach in the NFL.” The league ceased operations in 2012.
