Paul owns 5 Super Bowl rings

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Paul owns 5 Super Bowl rings

Sports

Saturday, 18 August 2012 00:00

Osceola High grad witnessed another Giants championship
By Rick Pedone
Sports Editor
Kissimmee native and New York Giants Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach Markus Paul had witnessed this drama before.
The Giants were staggering through a four-game losing streak late in the 2011 NFL season, Coach Tom Coughlin was under fire, the season was just about finished.
Did he think the Giants would pull off another Super Bowl run, as they did in 2007, while everyone else was writing their obituary?
“I’ll tell you what. No,” Paul said. “At that point, you’re just trying to win your division, get in the playoffs.”
We know how the story turned out. The Giants, for the second time in four seasons, went on a near-miraculous late-season run to win the NFC East championship before defeating Atlanta (24-2), Green Bay (37-20), San Francisco (20-17, OT) and then New England (21-17) in Super Bowl XLVI for the team’s fourth Super Bowl championship.
Paul, an Osceola High graduate and former Chicago Bears defensive back, has one more Super Bowl ring than the Giants organization – five, counting three he won with New England in 2001, 2003 and 2004.
“It’s unbelievable,” Paul said.
Paul’s mentor, Mike Woicik, has six rings from Dallas and New England.
“I don’t know of anyone other than Mike who has six,” Paul said. “I still need one more to catch him.”
Paul was in Kissimmee last month, relaxing for a few days with his family, before returning to the NFL meat grinder in late July for the opening of training camp.
“It’s the time when we feel the most pressure. If someone comes in out of shape and is having problems, everyone’s looking to the strength coaches to see what the problem is,” he said. “But, the thing is, under the new collective bargaining agreement, they are off for six weeks after the June practices. We don’t have any interaction with them. When they come to camp, that’s when you see who the real professionals are.”
The Giants played their only game in Florida this season Aug. 10, a 32-31 loss to Jacksonville.
For Paul and all NFL coaches, the term “offseason” is a misnomer. The Giants coaching staff got a brief break after the Super Bowl, but then it was right back to work preparing for the draft. Paul helped injured players rehabilitate, and he worked with the incoming free agents and draft picks, preparing them for the Optional Team Activities in May and the Giants’ mini-camp in June.
Paul reflected on the Giants’ eerie journey last year and how it was amazingly similar to the 2007 season.
“We were talking about how incredible it was that we were in the exact same situation as the last time. We had to beat Green Bay in Green Bay, we won the (NFC) championship in overtime, and then we had New England again,” he said.
Paul said the key to the Giants championship run was Coughlin, who never let the team quit despite the regular-season adversity.
“He knows when to back off, and when to challenge the players,” Paul said.
Paul said in looking back at the Giants’ late-season losing streak, when the team stumbled to .500 from a 6-2 start, he realized that the Giants had lost to good teams: Green Bay, Philadelphia, San Francisco and New Orleans.
“We were getting healthier. Things were starting to come together,” Paul said. “One thing about the Giants is that they always play their best when their backs are against the wall. I wish we wouldn’t do it that way, though, because I’m getting some gray hair.”
Last season’s Super Bowl was a flashback to Super Bowl XLI: close throughout, New England holding a lead in the fourth quarter, and then quarterback Eli Manning making a remarkable 38-yard throw to Mario Manningham along the sideline late in the game to spur the winning touchdown drive.
“It was just like with David Tyree (in 2008),” Paul said.
Paul didn’t see the big pass play this time, though.
“One of my jobs is to get the pictures to the defensive line coach between series, and that’s what I was doing when Manningham made that catch,” Paul said. “I heard this big cheer, and I was like, ‘What happened?’”
He and just about everyone else rooting for the Giants winced when running back Ahmad Bradshaw scored the winning touchdown with 57 seconds left, rather than stopping short of the goal line so the Giants could run down the clock.
“I firmly believed in that game that the last team that had the ball was going to win,” Paul said. “When Ahmad scored, I was like, ‘Ahmad, no!’ I didn’t care that it was only 57 seconds left. I knew Tom Brady was going back out on the field with a chance to win it.”
The Patriots quarterback’s last-second pass into the end zone barely fell incomplete.
“A foot closer, and he would have pulled it off,” Paul said.
Brady and Paul were close friends when Paul worked for the Patriots.
“I didn’t get a chance to see him after the game, or just about anyone else from the Patriots. I saw (Patriots running back) Kevin Faulk for just a moment, but the one thing I don’t like about the way they handle the Super Bowl is that you don’t have any time to see any of the players from the other side. I still know a lot of the coaches there, and about 12 of the players,” Paul said.
Several important Giants players from last year, including Manningham and running back Brandon Jacobs, left as free agents.
But, Paul is confident that replacements like first round draft pick David Wilson, a running back from Virginia Tech, and LSU receiver Reuben Randall, will help.
Randall may be called on to produce quickly, depending on how fast receiver Hakeem Nicks recuperates from an offseason foot injury.
“We had some big losses, but I think the guys we brought in will do a great job for us,” Paul said.
Paul has worked with two of the game’s elite quarterbacks and probable Hall of Famers in Brady and Eli Manning, and he said both players are exceptional off the field as well.
“When I was with New England, Tom Brady was great with my kids. They loved him,” Paul said. “Eli is one of the nicest guys in the building. He’ll call if he’s going to be late for a workout.”
After five seasons with the Giants, Paul and his wife, Patricia, a social worker, have settled in the New Jersey suburbs where their children, Jairus and Tabitha, play high school and middle school sports.
“Jairus decided to pick up football again for his freshman year, and he had a pretty good season,” Paul said. “He even did what I did during my freshman year at Osceola. He broke his leg. I told him that meant that he was going to follow in my footsteps and be a defensive back for the Bears.”
After graduating from OHS in 1984, Paul was an All-American defensive back at Syracuse and was a fourth-round draft pick by Bears’ Coach Mike Ditka in 1989.
“I’m not sure how Coach Ditka would handle some of the players today. He just got in your face and told you what to do. These guys now, a lot of them, you have to explain why you are asking them to do something,” Paul said.
Just before the team rode in its victory parade in New York City, two days after the Super Bowl win, Paul said the coaching staff had a meeting and then got measured for their rings. They were presented with the rings in May, shortly after the team made a visit to the White House.
“I love being around these guys. They keep me young,” he said.
Are five championship rings enough for Paul?
“I remember one time someone asked Tom Brady what his favorite Super Bowl ring was, and he said, ‘The next one,’” Paul said. “That’s the way I feel. It never gets old.”