TAMPA – No one anticipated Jim Fassel’s pre-Thanksgiving guarantee. No one, that is, but Mike Murphy, who is in charge of Giants security.

“I knew after the Detroit loss when he walked off the field he was absolutely beside himself and you could see his brain working outside his head,” Murphy recalled. “At that point he was already figuring out what he was going to do to fix this. It wasn’t like ‘Poor me,’ it was ‘[bleep] this, we’re going to fix this.’ When he came up with the guarantee he had visualized it.

“I could see he wasn’t looking for any sympathy. He was parting seas in his mind, jumping on his bandwagon, we’re at war now, you’re either with me or against me and if you’re with me, plan on dying.”