**COURTESY NEW YORK GIANTS**
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – The Giants announced today that Ben McAdoo will become the 17th head coach in franchise history.
McAdoo, 38, was the team’s offensive coordinator the previous two seasons. He replaces Tom Coughlin, who stepped down last week after 12 seasons as the Giants’ coach.
“I am honored to serve as the 17th head coach in the history of the New York Giants franchise,” McAdoo said. “I am thankful to the Mara family, the Tisch family and Jerry Reese for this opportunity. I am appreciative of the support of my family, my wife Toni and our two children (Larkin and BJ) and my parents, brother and sister and in-laws back in Homer City, Pa. I have been very fortunate to have a lot of great coaches, administrators and players take an interest in me and my career. It has been a privilege to work and learn under Coach Coughlin.
“I have been preparing for this moment my entire professional life, and without the guidance and support of many people, I would not be here right now.”
McAdoo interviewed with team president John Mara and general manager Jerry Reese on Tuesday, Jan. 5 and again yesterday when he also spoke with team chairman Steve Tisch and treasurer Jonathan Tisch. Mara and Reese interviewed five other candidates before choosing McAdoo.
“Ben is an outstanding young coach who has great experience and has done a good job as our offensive coordinator these past two years,” Mara said. “Jerry and I interviewed six impressive candidates, and when we were through with that process, we had another conversation with Ben, as did Steve and Jon Tisch. We were all impressed with his energy, his enthusiasm, his vision and his desire. Ben has been preparing for this opportunity since he started coaching, and he has earned his stripes every step of the way. Some have suggested he may not be ready, and as I said last week, we want a coach who feels like he has something to prove.”
“I am happy for Ben and happy for our franchise,” Steve Tisch said. “When I spoke to Ben with my brother Jon, we were both impressed with his understanding of what it means to lead, his thoughts on how to build and establish a sense of team and how to motivate the individual and the group. Ben’s mentors in coaching, including Tom Coughlin, are impressive. We look forward to much success under Ben’s leadership.”
McAdoo and Reese will collaborate with the team’s personnel departments in reshaping the Giants’ roster. The Giants were 6-10 in 2015.
“Ben is very excited, and I’m very excited and happy for him,” Reese said. “We are looking forward to working closely together, and can’t wait to get moving with the offseason.”
“I look forward to working with Jerry,” McAdoo said. “We have a lot of work to do, and it will take a collaborative effort for Jerry and I to achieve what is always the goal for this franchise: another Lombardi Trophy.”
When he joined the franchise prior to the 2014 season, McAdoo took command of an offense that had finished 28th in the NFL the previous season. In 2013, the Giants averaged 307.5 yards per game, including 83.3 rushing and 224.3 passing. They scored 294 points.
In two seasons with McAdoo formulating game plans and calling the plays, the Giants’ offense ranked 10th and eighth, respectively, in the NFL. They averaged 367.2 and 372.3 total yards, 100.2 and 100.6 rushing yards, and 267.0 and 271.7 passing yards. The Giants’ point totals were 380 in 2014, and 420 in the just-completed 2015 season.
The Giants scored at least 24 points in each of their final six games of the 2014 season and the 2015 season opener, their longest such streak since they scored 24 or more points in eight consecutive games from Sept. 29-Nov. 17, 1963.
The Giants’ 420 points was the fifth-highest total in franchise history, and their 5,952 net yards was the third-highest total. They set franchise records for pass attempts (623), completions (392), and their 36 touchdown passes were the second-highest total in Giants history.
“I’m excited,” Eli Manning said of McAdoo’s appointment. “I’m excited for the Giants organization and for the team. I think Coach McAdoo is a great coach, a great teacher, and will be a great leader of this team. I’m excited to continue to work with him and grow within this offense, and get this organization back where it needs to be.”
Manning’s numbers have also sharply improved under McAdoo. In 2013, Manning completed 58.5 percent of his passes, and threw for 3,818 yards, 18 touchdowns and 27 interceptions. Manning’s two-year averages under McAdoo are a 62.8 completion percentage, 4,421 yards, 32.5 touchdowns and 14 interceptions. Manning’s 35 touchdown passes in 2015 were a career high, and just one shy of the franchise record set by Pro Football Hall of Famer Y.A., Tittle in 1963.
“I think the Giants ownership made this decision on what’s best for the organization and best for the team,” said Manning. “I think Coach McAdoo has great leadership skills, and will do a great job being a head coach and leading us in the right direction. If a new offensive scheme came in, I would’ve adjusted to it and been able to go out there and play at a high level. I enjoy this offense, I enjoy working with Coach McAdoo. I’m excited about that staying the same.”
Before joining the Giants’ coaching staff, McAdoo spent eight years as an assistant coach with the Green Bay Packers under Mike McCarthy, the first six as the team’s tight ends coach and the final two as the quarterbacks coach.
“I’m very happy for Ben and (wife) Toni to be in this position and the opportunity that’s in front of him,” McCarthy said. “I can’t tell you how proud I am of him and the job he’s done over the years. He’s definitely ready and deserving.”
During his tenure in Green Bay, the Packers earned six playoff berths, won four NFC North titles and defeated Pittsburgh in Super Bowl XLV.
He began mentoring the Packers’ quarterbacks in 2012, one year after Aaron Rodgers was selected the NFL’s Most Valuable Player. Rodgers continued to excel under McAdoo’s direction. He was voted the NFC Pro Bowl starter after completing 371 of 552 attempts for 4,295 yards and 39 touchdowns against only eight interceptions, and leading the league in passer rating for the second consecutive season (108.0).
In 2013, Rodgers missed seven games with a fractured collarbone, and McAdoo was forced to prepare three other players to start at quarterback (Seneca Wallace, Scott Tolzien and Matt Flynn). Even with a cast of quarterbacks, Green Bay won the NFC North championship with an 8-7-1 record. The Packers’ offense finished the season ranked third in the NFL (400.3 yards a game) and, despite missing Rodgers for almost half the season, sixth in passing yards (266.8). When he did play, Rodgers was outstanding, completing 66.6 percent of his passes, throwing for 17 touchdowns against only eight interceptions, and finishing with a passer rating of 104.9.
In McAdoo’s final season as the Packers’ tight ends coach in 2011, he helped then fourth-year pro Jermichael Finley return to the field following a season-ending knee injury suffered the previous year. Finley was named a Pro Bowl alternate after playing in all 16 games for the first time and setting new career highs with 767 yards and eight touchdowns, while matching his previous career best with 55 catches. He was the first tight end in Green Bay history with two 55-catch seasons. McAdoo also helped develop second-year tight ends Tom Crabtree and Andrew Quarless.
In 2010, the Packers won the Super Bowl as the NFC’s sixth seed with significant contributions from McAdoo’s tight ends. Finley got off to a torrid start, posting 21 catches for 301 yards and a touchdown in the opening four games. That included back-to-back 100-yard receiving performances as Finley joined Paul Coffman (1979) as the only tight ends in Packers history to accomplish that feat.
After Finley sustained his knee injury on the opening series at Washington in Week 5, Quarless, then a rookie, and Crabtree, a first-year pro, moved into more significant roles under McAdoo’s guidance. Quarless went on to catch 21 passes for 238 yards, the best marks by a Green Bay rookie tight end in each category since Bubba Franks (34-363) in 2000. Quarless’ 62 receiving yards at Detroit in Week 14 were the most by a Packers rookie tight end since Ron Kramer had 68 at Detroit on Nov. 28, 1957.
In 2009, McAdoo oversaw one of the most productive seasons by the tight ends in team history. With the emergence of young players Finley and Spencer Havner, along with veteran Donald Lee, Green Bay’s tight ends posted a collective 99 receptions for 1,048 yards, franchise records in both categories.
Finley (55 receptions) and Lee (37) became the first tight end duo in franchise history to each post 35-plus receptions in the same season, and they were one of only two tandems in the league to do so in 2009, along with New Orleans’ Jeremy Shockey and David Thomas. And with Finley (five scores) and Havner (four), the Packers were the only team in the NFL to have two tight ends catch at least four touchdown receptions apiece.
Finley was a third-round draft choice in 2008 and McAdoo helped him learn the pro game as a rookie, when the first-year pro posted three receptions for 64 yards and his first NFL touchdown in the final two games.
In 2007, it was former backup Lee who had a breakout year after moving into the starting role. Lee tallied career highs with 48 catches for 575 yards and six touchdowns. In 2008-09, he became the first Packers tight end since Coffman (1981-83) to catch at least 35 passes in three consecutive seasons.
Upon arriving in Green Bay in 2006, McAdoo helped the Packers’ tight ends adapt successfully to additional blocking and pass-protection duties they hadn’t previously been assigned. The added assistance helped a young offensive line, which at times had as many as three rookie starters, allow only 24 sacks all season.
Originally named to the tight ends post on Jan. 17, 2006, McAdoo replaced Joe Philbin, who had been made the team’s offensive line coach after McCarthy was introduced as head coach. McAdoo worked for McCarthy at each of his previous NFL spots.
McAdoo went to Green Bay from the San Francisco 49ers, where he served as assistant offensive line/quality control coach in 2005. In that role, he assisted the offensive line and tight ends.
Prior to joining the 49ers, he had a brief stint at Stanford University as tackles and tight ends coach. He resigned after the 2005 recruiting season to take the 49ers position and reunite with McCarthy, then the San Francisco offensive coordinator, with whom he worked in New Orleans the previous season.
McAdoo entered the NFL in 2004 with the New Orleans Saints as an offensive assistant/quality control coach. He worked directly with McCarthy and assisted the offensive line and tight ends.
“Ben has a tremendous work ethic,” McCarthy said. “I remember the first day I met him in Indianapolis at the combine. I was the offensive coordinator for the New Orleans Saints, and he had called me on the phone and was seeking an opportunity just to talk football. He was coaching, I don’t recall the school, somewhere in Connecticut, and we talked on the phone that evening. The next day at lunch, when I was coming back from workouts at the combine, Ben was sitting in the hotel lobby waiting for me. He drove all night just for an opportunity to sit down and talk football. That was my first impression of Ben McAdoo. The position he’s put himself in is no surprise. Ben is tremendously dedicated, not just to his family but to the coaching profession.”
Prior to working in the NFL, McAdoo spent 2003 as an offensive assistant at the University of Pittsburgh, helping the Panthers earn a trip to the Continental Tire Bowl after an 8-5 season. At season’s end, the University of Akron hired him as an assistant coach, but he stayed only through the 2004 recruiting period before joining the Saints staff.
Earlier, he served as offensive line/tight ends coach at Fairfield (Conn.) University in 2002. After that campaign, the head coach left the team and McAdoo was appointed assistant head coach before the program was disbanded.
He began his college coaching career at Michigan State University (2001) as a special teams/offensive assistant, on the heels of coaching four years at the high school level. McAdoo spent two years in the Homer Center school district in Pennsylvania and two years in the Indiana (Pa.) area.
McAdoo attended Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) and earned a degree in health and physical education. Later, he received his master’s degree in kinesiology from Michigan State.
McAdoo and Toni, a fellow native of Western Pennsylvania, have a daughter, Larkin, and a son, BJ.