Quote:The team had three straight losing seasons under Coughlin. It was time for a change. Weaver probably should have fired him after the 2001 season when the team underperformed and was so far over the cap they had to dump half of their roster. Would have been a good time to start over. The 2002 season was basically a joke.

Quote:“If hindsight you could change, I’ll be honest with you: I probably would have never changed Coughlin,” Weaver said. “I would have tried to have Tom take a step back and just be the coach. I thought about it, but I didn’t think Tom would do it. I thought Tom’s pride would never allow him to take a step back and me take the general manager’s position and all power and say, ‘Go coach the football team.’ He did that in New York, but I thought it would hurt his pride too much.”