Former Giants Head Coach Ray Handley Passes Away

Handley joined the Giants as an offensive backfield coach in 1984, a role he held until 1990. During that time with the Giants, he was part of two Super Bowl championship teams as a member of Bill Parcells’s staff.

In May 1991, Handley suddenly found himself thrust into an unexpected role as the team’s new head coach after Parcells resigned due to health concerns.

The timing of the promotion immediately put Handley behind the eight-ball, as by then, the Giants had completed the draft and had pretty much set the roster and direction moving forward, which caused Handley to try to catch up. 

Handley, as head coach, went 14-18 in his two short seasons with the Giants, a tenure far from smooth, in part due to circumstances and in part due to his own doing.

His most famous decision came when he declared an open competition at quarterback after Phil Simms, who had posted an 11-2 record in 1990 before a season-ending foot injury, knocked him out of the back end of the 1990 season and the postseason run. 

Hostetler, who quarterbacked the Giants during the 1990 playoff run and was more of a mobile quarterback than Simms, ended up winning the starting job in training camp, a controversial decision that didn’t sit well with some.

"I think as much as anything else, it's a gut decision," the Stanford-educated Handley said after making the decision public. "I don't think one is very ahead of the other." 

Handley’s other issue stemmed from a decision to name Rod Rust as the team’s defensive coordinator, with whom it was reported at the time clashed with some members of the defense because of his “read-and-react” defensive philosophy that was the complete opposite of the “attack” style of defense that the team had previously run.

Still others on the Giants' defense defended the decision to go with Rust, citing a need for better execution.

In the end, the Giants went backwards under Handley’s watch, going 8-8 in his first season and then 6-10 the following year before being fired, replaced by former Denver Broncos head coach Dan Reeves.

After being fired by the Giants, Handley never coached at any level again and refused to speak of his time with the Giants or in the NFL, instead choosing to live a highly private life. 

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