![\"Ray](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/handley-giants-main-1.jpg\")
Ray Handley is pictured during a game as the Giants\u2019 head coach. Focus on Sport\/Getty Images<\/p>\nRay Handley, former Giants head coach and two-time Super Bowl-winning assistant, died last week, the team announced and his nephew confirmed. Handley was 81.<\/p>\n
Handley almost never spoke publicly about his time with the Giants after his firing in 1992, living off the grid in Lake Tahoe, never returning to coaching and losing touch with the organization.<\/p>\n
At the peak of his NFL career, Handley was the offensive backfield coach for Bill Parcells\u2019 powerhouse Giants from 1984-90. The two coaches had first built a mutual respect working together as assistants at Army in 1968-69.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a very astute mathematician,\u201d Parcells told The Post on Monday. \u201cHe always assisted me in my clock management, particularly late in the games. He was on top of figuring out how many potential plays an opponent had left, or how many we had left. He always factored in the timeouts and was a good reference on the field under pressure in that regard.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his final game as an assistant coach before succeeding Parcells, Handley 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe made a difference in my career,\u201d Anderson \u2014 already a Pro Bowler when he joined the Giants in 1986 \u2014 told The Post. \u201cIf it meant doing extra work to continue to try to be the best you can be or more work in the weight room, everything that you wanted to do on the football field to give you a higher status, he was there to make sure you achieved it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ray Handley is pictured during a game as the Giants\u2019 head coach. Focus on Sport\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Handley\u2019s two-year stint as head coach was rocky on and off the field. He emerged as the choice to replace the retired Parcells after defensive coordinator Bill Belichick left to become Browns head coach and receivers coach Tom Coughlin left to become Boston College head coach.<\/p>\n
Handley fought with media members, faced backlash from fans who expected Parcells-ian results and lost authority over veteran players by not ruling with the same iron fist. His two biggest calls \u2014 selecting Jeff Hostetler over Phil Simms in a quarterback training-camp battle in 1991 and changing the defensive scheme to read-and-react in 1992 \u2014 both backfired.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not easy to be a head coach and he\u2019s following one of the greatest coaches ever,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cThat made it hard to live up to any expectations that he had for himself \u2014 let alone what everyone outside of the locker room was putting on him. It made life tough for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis philosophy was totally different from Bill\u2019s, and I think we took advantage of it. Bill was very stern and aggressive. Ray believed, \u2018You guys are men. You make good money. I don\u2019t need to punish you like you are kids.\u2019 I think that\u2019s mainly where he went wrong. We need to be treated like kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1991-season-new-york-giants-24880878.jpg\")
Ray Handley is pictured during a Giants game in 1991. AP<\/p>\n
Handley was fired after going 14-18 (.438), which doesn\u2019t sound like a bad winning percentage compared to recent Giants head coaches Brian Daboll (.336), Joe Judge (.303) and Pat Shurmur (.281) but was considered bottoming out at the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a lot of respect for him,\u201d said Parcells, who lost contact with Handley over the years. \u201cBeing a first-time head coach, it\u2019s not the easiest to follow up on (winning). But the opportunity only comes a certain amount of places and times, and you have to do your best.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGo behind the scenes with Big Blue\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Giants by Paul Schwartz, a weekly Sports+ exclusive.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The Giants hired three-time AFC champion Dan Reeves in 1993.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour team has to feel certain that it has a chance to win,\u201d then-general manager George Young said after firing Handley. \u201cIf your players feel that the coach is going to take them to nirvana, that\u2019s a big thing. When you feel your players are having trouble, whether they\u2019re right or wrong, it\u2019s tough. It gets to be a point of credibility, whether it\u2019s a real or unreal credibility.\u201d<\/p>\n
No funeral arrangements have been announced.<\/p>\n
Handley \u201cwas an honorable man\u201d who was \u201cknown for intensity, competitiveness, and demanding accountability; leaving a lasting mark on his family, the programs, and the players he helped shape,\u201d his nephew Rob wrote on social media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ray Handley, former Giants head coach and two-time Super Bowl-winning assistant, died last week, the team announced and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[977,349,35646,214515,99],"class_list":["post-459523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-new-york-giants","tag-nfl","tag-obits","tag-ray-handley","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}