It was the day before Thanksgiving in 2000, and Giants Coach Jim Fassel, who looked like a librarian and generally behaved like the winsome air-conditioning salesman he once was, had a wild, restless look in his eye.
His Giants, two weeks earlier a shoo-in for the N.F.L. playoffs, had been booed off the field after two consecutive ugly home losses. Their postseason prospects were now dim, a mutiny was brewing in the locker room and management was agitated.
Fassel, who died on Monday at age 71, stepped to the rostrum for what was normally a pro forma news conference, and in a fiery tone barked: “I’m raising the stakes right now.