Maybe it's the Stanford pedigree; Jim Fassel recruited and coached John Elway there from 1979-83. Maybe it's the fact that he literally wears button-down shirts. Or perhaps it's the tidy, approaching-anal-retentive way he organizes the papers on his desk.

Fassel, to all appearances, could work in a toxicology lab or teach college chemistry. In a sense, he does. Like all head coaches, he is constantly assessing his team's collective mood. Unlike many head coaches, he is willing to take risks.

	Fassel

The Giants got off to a fast start in 2000, winning seven of nine games. But after consecutive losses -- to St. Louis and Detroit at home -- the Giants found themselves 7-4. In the press conference after the loss to the Lions, a game in which the Giants trailed 28-0, an agitated Fassel said, 'This team is going to make the playoffs." And then he said it again.

Initially, Giants defensive end Michael Strahan thought Fassel might have temporarily lost his mind.

"I was like, 'Oh, OK, the guy's running his mouth, maybe he got a little excited, who knows?' " Strahan said. "But I think he knew what he was doing. The second time he said it, I think we as players put it on ourselves to make it happen."

Consciously or unconsciously, Fassel had made himself the headline in the aftermath of the loss and, at the same time, exerted pressure on his players to perform.

"I didn't do it for any other reason than that was in my gut," explained Fassel, who's team subsequently advanced to Super Bowl XXXV. "I needed to give my team confidence and some fight and I needed to give them some direction. You've got to know your team. You've got to know when to do that."

A similar storyline unfolded this past season. The Giants were 6-6 after a 32-29 loss to Tennessee on Dec. 1. While Fassel stopped short of issuing another guarantee, he had some harsh words for the players. The team responded with four straight wins -- over Washington, Dallas, Indianapolis and Philadelphia -- to finish out the month. That made Fassel's December record a spiffy 19-5 -- the league's best since he arrived in 1997.

Sometimes actions speak louder than rhetoric. One of the season's subtexts was Fassel's decision to take over the play calling from former offensive coordinator Sean Payton on Oct. 30. The Giants had scored seven offensive touchdowns in seven games and Fassel knew he needed to change the dynamic. The Giants responded by scoring 26 touchdowns in the last nine regular-season games -- and five more in a 39-38 playoff loss to the San Francisco 49ers.

Oddly enough, Fassel insisted that his greatest opponent is not the 49ers or the Redskins or the Eagles. In terms of damage control, he said, the media occupies a good deal of his time -- both publicly and behind the scenes with the players.

"The way the media is," Fassel said, "you lose a game and all hope is lost. If you play 16 games and you're, say, 10-6, that puts you in the top group. Of those 10 games, you'll probably get glowing reviews four or five times. The other four or five, you should have played better. When your team loses? You played like absolute (expletive deleted).

"You have to be able to go against that current. It's never as good as they think, never as bad."

Greg Garber is a senior writer at ESPN.com.