7:24pm: The Giants have officially extended Coughlin’s contract through the 2016 season, tweets Schwartz.
MARCH 11, 4:22pm: Coughlin’s one-year extension will be announced soon, perhaps even Wednesday afternoon, according to Paul Schwartz of the New York Post (on Twitter).
FEBRUARY 23: During his press conference at the combine in Indianapolis, Giants head coach Tom Coughlin said that extension talks between he and the team had occurred, and he would soon be able to provide an update on that front. It appears that update will come today. According to Kimberly Jones of NFL.com (via Twitter), the expectation is that Coughlin will sign a one-year extension with the Giants after he returns from the combine today.
Almost exactly a year ago to the day, Coughlin agreed to a one-year contract extension with the Giants, and it looks like his new deal will be another one-year pact. While the longtime coach joked at season’s end that he thinks he has at least another decade in him, he’ll turn 69 before the 2015 season begins, so it makes sense that he and the club would keep agreeing to short-term extensions rather than a multiyear pact. Coughlin’s current contract would have expired at the end of the coming season, so tacking on an extra year will allow him to avoid heading into the year as a lame-duck coach.
For a time during the 2014 season, the Giants were playing so poorly that it seemed as if it could be Coughlin’s last year in New York. However, the team won three of its last four games, and the emergence of rookie wideout Odell Beckham in the season’s second half provided some optimism for the franchise going forward. Coughlin also had to deal with an unusual number of injuries in ’14 — per Spotrac, no club finished the season with more players on the injured reserve list than the Giants, who had 22 guys on IR.
Financial terms of Coughlin’s new deal aren’t yet known, but if he earns a similar salary to his previous contract, his one-year compensation figures to be in the neighborhood of $7MM.