New York Giants
- Awards And Honors:
- Super Bowl (2012)
- Super Bowl (2008)
- Super Bowl (1991)
- Super Bowl (1987)
- Date:
- 1925 - present
- Areas Of Involvement:
- American football
News •
New York Giants, American professional football team based in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The Giants have won four National Football League (NFL) championships (1927, 1934, 1938, and 1956) and four Super Bowls (1987, 1991, 2008, and 2012). The Giants were noted for their early successes and for their dominant play in the 1980s and ’90s under head coach Bill Parcells.
(Read Walter Camp’s 1903 Britannica essay on inventing American football.)
The Giants were established in 1925 in New York and played their first three decades at the Polo Grounds in upper Manhattan. The franchise was purchased for $500 by Tim Mara, whose family retained an ownership interest in the team into the 21st century (in 1930 he split ownership between his two sons, Jack and Wellington). Although the Giants lost their first contest 14–0 to the Frankford Yellow Jackets, they quickly distinguished themselves as one of the great teams of early professional football, winning NFL championships in 1927, 1934, and 1938. The Giants won the 1934 championship 30–13 over the Washington Redskins in the famous “Sneakers Game”; the Giants trailed at halftime but switched to basketball shoes to gain better traction on the icy field. During the next decade the Giants continued to enjoy success, advancing to (though losing) four NFL championship games (1939, 1941, 1944, and 1946). In the late 1940s the team endured hardship on the field, posting consecutive losing seasons in 1947, 1948, and 1949 before enjoying success again in the 1950s.
In 1956 the Giants moved from the Polo Grounds to Yankee Stadium and, behind the legs of legendary running back Frank Gifford and the grit of linebacker Sam Huff, captured their fourth (and last) NFL championship. During this period the team included defensive back Emlen Tunnell, who played 11 seasons (1948–58) and became the first African American player to be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The 1950s team was also notable for its coaching staff, with Vince Lombardi in charge of the offense and Tom Landry the defense. Both coaches went on to be legends of the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys, respectively. The 1958 NFL championship pitted the Giants against the Baltimore Colts, in what was viewed by many as one of football’s greatest games. With a national television audience watching, the Colts beat the Giants 23–17 in a dramatic contest that ended in sudden-death overtime. The game marked the beginning of the NFL’s tremendous popularity in the United States.
The Giants, led by quarterback Y.A. Tittle, advanced to the NFL championship game in 1961, 1962, and 1963 but then struggled for many seasons, posting only two winning records (1970 and 1972) between 1964 and 1980. In that period the team also moved from New York to New Jersey, beginning play at Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands in 1976 (the team played seasons in the Yale Bowl in Connecticut and Shea Stadium in Queens, New York). During this stretch the Giants suffered one of their most stinging defeats in what was called the “Miracle at the Meadowlands” or “The Fumble”; on November 19, 1978, against the Philadelphia Eagles, the Giants led 17–12 and needed only to run out the clock to secure victory, but an errant handoff from quarterback Joe Pisarcik to fullback Larry Csonka allowed the Eagles’ Herman Edwards to recover the fumble and run 26 yards into the end zone to win the game.
Bill Parcells became the Giants’ head coach during the 1983 season. Parcells assembled teams that included linebackers Lawrence Taylor and Harry Carson, quarterback Phil Simms, and tight end Mark Bavaro. The Giants won Super Bowls following the 1986 and 1990 seasons, maintaining success through the majority of Parcells’s tenure. After capturing a second Super Bowl, Parcells left the team, and afterward the Giants had a mixed record, with four winning seasons between 1991 and 2000. In 2000 they advanced to the Super Bowl, losing 34–7 to the Baltimore Ravens.
In 2004 Tom Coughlin joined the franchise as its head coach, and, though he sometimes faced criticism for his style, the Giants performed well under his leadership. In Super Bowl XLII in 2008, led by quarterback Eli Manning and defensive lineman Michael Strahan, the Giants managed one of the greatest upsets in NFL history, defeating the previously undefeated and heavily favored New England Patriots. After a two-year playoff drought, the Giants again reached the Super Bowl following the 2011 season and defeated the Patriots 21–17. The team posted mediocre records the following four years, missing the playoffs each season, which resulted in Coughlin’s parting ways with the franchise following the 2015 campaign.
An improved defense led to the Giants’ posting an 11–5 record in 2016, and the team qualified for the playoffs, where New York lost its opening game. It was a short-lived improvement, however, as the Giants sustained a number of significant injuries in 2017, which helped result in the team posting the second worst record in the NFL (3–13) that season. The Giants remained in the lowest ranks of the league and missed the playoffs over the next four years. Under a new coaching staff, headed by Brian Daboll, the team finished the 2022 season with a 9–7–1 record and finally returned to the playoffs, where they lost in the divisional round. However, sustained success proved elusive, as the Giants had a 6–11 record in 2023 and were out of playoff contention.