Ray Handley, former Giants head coach and two-time Super Bowl-winning assistant, died last week, the team announced with confirmation from his nephew.
Handley was 81.
Handley rarely, if ever, publicly spoke of his time with the Giants after his firing in 1992, living off the grid and never returning to coaching.
At the peak of his NFL legacy, Handley was the offensive backfield coach for the Giants from 1984-90, winning two Super Bowls in that time.
He was the position coach for Super Bowl 25 MVP O.J. Anderson when the game plan was to control the clock and keep the explosive Bills offense on the sideline.
Handley replaced the retired Bill Parcells as head coach in 1991 — shortly after defensive coordinator Bill Belichick left to become Browns head coach and receivers coach Tom Coughlin left to become head coach at Boston College.
Handley’s two-year stint as Giants head coach was marred by fighting with media members, resentment from fans who expected Parcells-ian success and losing authority over the veteran players.
He was fired after going 14-18 (.438), which doesn’t sound like a bad winning percentage compared to some of the recent Giants head coaches like Brian Daboll (.336), Joe Judge (.303) and Pat Shurmur (.281) but was considered bottoming-out at the time.