Reminder: Bill Belichick Was Pretty Good as the Giants Defensive Coordinator
It was a long time ago, but many fans sometimes forget how great of a defensive coordinator Bill Belichick was with the Giants from 1985-90.
During that span, they had arguably the best defense in the NFL. Here were their league ranks:
There were several outstanding defensive performances in big games along the way. That included a shutout of Joe Gibbs’ Redskins offense in the 1986 NFC Championship Game, and an unconventional gameplan to hold the Bills to 17 Points in Super Bowl XXV just a week after they scored 51 against the Raiders.
But perhaps the best representation of how good Belichick was with that Giants defense was how well they performed against Joe Montana and the 49ers offense. San Francisco won 4 Super Bowls in the 80’s, but Belichick and the Giants D were their kryptonite:
The Giants won two Super Bowls in 1986 and 1990 with defense-first teams led by Belichick. They went through Montana and the Niners both times.
Belichick famously owns a boat named after the number of Super Bowls he’s won. It’s called VIII Rings, not VI Rings, in case you were under the mistaken impression that he was some useless coach who did nothing prior to 2000 and then lucked into 6 Super Bowls with the Patriots.
Good reminder because most people dont dig into profootball reference, and go by mythologies
People think the 80s bears was THE D ignoring NYG and even 49ers Defenses.
The 86 Giants would have been #1 in every D category but the 86 Bears had the best D of their era, allowed even less points then 85; went 14-2 without any offense.
"Finesse team" 49ers, lol Outside of 88 those niners teams that went all the way were both top in D and very good at running the ball.
So when the 1990 Giants Bellichiks best year in NY they played the Niners 2x in 1990 its 7-3 and 15-13 slugfests.