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Before Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning won two Super Bowls together, before they won anything together really, they were just a head coach and the rookie quarterback he was banking on trying to get through the coming weeks. In November 2004 Coughlin had elevated Manning to the starting job and the losses began to pile up. Not only was the team unsuccessful, Manning had some inarguably awful performances.

Coughlin thought back on those days on Wednesday night as he hosted his Jay Fund’s 21st annual Champions for Children Gala in Manhattan, an event that began that same year he and Manning came to New York.

He mentioned the 31-7 loss in Washington where Manning completed just 12 passes. He recalled the week after that, in Baltimore, when the Giants lost, 37-14, and Manning completed just four passes with a rating of 0.0.

“Eli came in and sat in my office first thing in the morning [after those games],” Coughlin said. “He wanted to assure me that he could do it and that he could be the quarterback of the New York Giants and that he would improve and be better each time out.

“And he was.”

It’s not just the coincidence of timing that brought those memories back 21 years later of course. The Giants now find themselves in a bit of a similar situation. They have a new rookie quarterback. They are struggling. Jaxson Dart may have won his first start but he committed three turnovers last week against the Saints — not quite Rookie Eli Bad — and had a short week to prepare to face the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles on Thursday night at MetLife Stadium this week.

Coughlin didn’t want to pass along any direct advice to Brian Daboll as he navigates through this somewhat familiar terrain.

“Brian knows what he is doing,” Coughlin said.

But Coughlin did spend some time with the Giants at training camp. He did get an up close look at Dart. And he has been watching Dart play the last few weeks. He’s impressed. He also knows it could take some time before the skills Dart has actually start to show up.

“He’s a good player, he’s a good athlete,” Coughlin said. “As with all young rookie quarterbacks there is going to be a learning curve… Everybody from here on out is going to prepare a different blitz package for him, something he hasn’t seen, and he has to go through it.”

The Giants have to go through it with him.

Manning in 2004 had some advantages that Dart currently does not, among them the players who would eventually become the franchise’s all-time leading rusher, all-time leader in receptions, and most prolific tight end in their history. Dart has played less than one half with Malik Nabers and heads into Thursday’s game without Darius Slayton (although alot of good Slayton did for him last week with a drop, a poor adjustment on a deep pass, and a fumble before injuring his hamstring). The guy who could have been Dart’s wingman in the backfield as the great difference-making running back? He's playing for the other side Thursday night.

The hope the Giants have now is the same that the Giants had in 2004, that whatever tribulations a rookie quarterback goes through result in success. And there is good reason to believe that it can. Just last weekend we saw two second-year quarterbacks blossom in Bo Nix and Drake Maye. They beat the Eagles and Bills, respectively. Had they not played as rookies, had they not gotten those growing pains out of the way (and Nix even did it while getting to the playoffs, which was a bonus), it’s unlikely they would have been able to accomplish that.

It's why all the hand-wringing over wanting Dart to sit and watch and learn from Russell Wilson was always just a fantasy. They wanted him to be Patrick Mahomes. The truth is Patrick Mahomes would probably have become Patrick Mahomes whether he played one game as a rookie or all 16 of them.

While a big part of that rookie quarterback challenge is the individual’s development, there are also 52 other players on the roster to think about as a head coach. Coughlin said it’s important that they all understand what is happening and why.

“It’s obvious, but in the circumstances, as they go along, you realize the talent [of the quarterback], what is there, and what’s to come,” he said. “With Eli, despite all the first year struggles — and look at his brother, what was his brother, 3-13 or something? –— when you go through it you pay the price and you learn from it. We came back in ’05 and won 11 games.”

The 2026 Giants should be so lucky.

Coughlin isn’t coaching any longer but he remains very involved in the Jay Fund, the organization he began to help families dealing with pediatric cancer. This is the 30th year for the organization and Coughlin was very excited about next year because it will be the 31st. Jay McGillis, the former Boston College player the foundation is named after, wore number 31.

At age 79, Coughlin said he does it for the very same reasons why he started doing it.

“Put it this way,” he said. “September was Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month. September ended. But guess what? Cancer hasn’t ended and the opportunity to help families who find themselves in desperate situations is still there so that drives us to want to continue to help.”

The two words he uses more often than any in his current role are resilience and perseverance.

They happen to have been two pretty critical aspects to his former role in football, too.

“I think a rookie quarterback in any situation anywhere goes through the exact same thing,” Coughlin said. “It’s something they all go through.”

Manning came out the other end a winner and a champion. So too did Coughlin. Dart’s journey is just beginning.