In 1996 the Jacksonville Jaguars were in the second season of their existence. They had gone 4-12 the past year, their first, as an expansion franchise, and when they started the '96 season at 4-7, it seemed they were heading for another dismal year. Then things started happening.

They won their last five games, and snuck into the post-season as a wild card team when the Falcons' Morten Andersen sliced a 30-yard field goal wide left in the final game. In the wild-card playoff the Jags came from behind and became the first team to beat the Bills in the postseason in Buffalo's Rich Stadium. In the second round Jacksonville came back from 12-0 behind and scored on six straight possessions to beat the 13-3 Broncos in Denver by the scored of 30-27, the first home playoff loss the Broncos had suffered in 12 years.

The '96 Jags were a young, passionate team that played with an almost maniac intensity -- whether it was Natrone Means pounding the ball behind one of the most punishing drive-blocking lines in football, or Mark Brunell scrambling and bleeding first downs almost through sheer force of will. They were fun to watch. You couldn't help rooting for them. The season ended in the AFC Championship Game in frozen Foxboro, but my God, what a run they'd had for a second-year expansion team.

The guy who made it work, the man whose players seemed almost ready to die for, was a tough-looking, rather plainspoken veteran coach who after 25 years in the business finally got his first shot at a head-coaching job in the NFL: Tom Coughlin . A graduate of the Bill Parcells system in New York ... Coughlin had coached the Giants' wide receivers. Known as a man who liked to work his players. Took no guff. Better not get on his bad side.

It lasted through 2002 for him in Jacksonville, and during that period there were some pretty gaudy achievements -- three more playoff years after '96, the best record in football at 14-2 in '99. And then things started unraveling. Players were grumbling about his severity. People got old -- or injured. In 2003 Coughlin was out, an ex-coach looking for a job.