Bill Parcells loves Brian Daboll’s Giants approach: ‘Keep being yourself’

Brian Daboll sat on the bench in Philly and wrapped his arm around the player who has been the most disappointing Giant of all. Kenny Golladay had actually scored a touchdown and had actually looked like a $72 million receiver on the catch, when his head coach decided to offer a public show of support. 

“I was proud of the young man,” Daboll explained Monday. 

So a coach who was seen during games ripping his quarterback, blasting a lineman and berating a ref showed his softer side while an 81-year-old fan watched from afar with great interest. Bill Parcells, as stormy a sideline presence as there’s ever been, has been saying for years that “you need to know when to put an arm around a guy.” 

In other words, a football player must feel that his coach truly cares about him, even after committing a series of mistakes. 

“You can’t ever let a player go home at night thinking he doesn’t belong,” Parcells said. “It can’t be one way all the time, especially if it’s negative. The players have got to see your human side, too.” 

Parcells was talking to The Post on Monday about how much he’s enjoyed Daboll’s rookie year, and how much he’s appreciated the coach’s consistent approach to the job. The Giants’ homegrown two-time Super Bowl champ and Hall of Famer doesn’t recall ever meeting Daboll in person, though he said they’ve spoken a couple of times by phone. 

Parcells had no interest in offering up specific coaching advice in advance of the Giants’ first playoff game since 2016 — Sunday’s wild-card round matchup with the Vikings in Minneapolis — because, he said, Daboll “knows his team a lot better than I do. I’d tell him to keep doing whatever he’s been doing, because it’s working. You have to keep being yourself in the playoffs. 

“This is what we’re supposed to do. We’re supposed to get in the playoffs, and I’m happy, elated, for my guys. I’ve been rooting for this team since 1949.” 

So yes, Parcells absolutely believes the sixth-seeded Giants have a chance to knock out the third-seeded Vikings. Before his first postseason game as a head coach, a 16-13 road victory over the Rams in 1984, Parcells convinced his players they could prevail despite their blowout loss to the Rams in Anaheim three months earlier. 

Daboll won’t need much of a sales pitch this week after his team nearly beat Minnesota in its building on Christmas Eve. 

“Giants players will believe, ‘If we play well, we will beat these guys,’ ” Parcells said. He will be pulling hard for the upset, in part because he’s never liked the Vikings. He’s always respected their legendary coach, Bud Grant, but he’s just never had any affection for the franchise that Grant made famous. 

“Some teams you just have like a built-in animosity for, and the Vikings are one of them,” Parcells said. “My list was probably a little too long.” 

Can the Giants outscore a team with Minnesota’s weapons? Parcells has always thought there’s a way for underdogs to contain and conquer high-powered offenses (see Buffalo Bills, Super Bowl XXV); he mentioned having a conversation with his former defensive coordinator, Bill Belichick, a year or two ago about that very subject. 

Of course, it’s easier to carry out the plan with Lawrence Taylor on your side. 

“The Giants have to keep from losing to the Giants in this game,” Parcells said over the phone. “How do the Giants lose to the Giants? You get a lot of penalties. You turn the ball over. You get a kick blocked. You miss a lot of tackles. You don’t capitalize in the red zone. 

“That’s how you lose to the Giants. I would tell them, ‘Don’t lose to them.’ ” 

On further review, Parcells did have one suggestion that would fall under the category of direct coach-to-coach advice for Daboll. Near the end of his final practice before Super Bowl XXI, he called his players together and told them they had to work a bit more on this one fake punt. They ended up using it against Denver in the game, converting a fourth-and-1 on the drive that gave the Giants a lead they never surrendered. 

“I’m not trying to make this dramatic here, but it’s just sound coaching to review some aspects that are not highly practiced,” Parcells said. “So if there’s anything of a trick variety like a fake punt or fake field goal, I would go back and review those with the whole team. I’d tell them, ‘Listen, I’m going to do everything I can do to win this game, and these situations might come up.’ ” 

Having coached in the pros and in the college game for a quarter century, and having worked under Belichick and Nick Saban, Daboll will most likely be ready Sunday for almost anything that comes up. 

Parcells will be watching from his Florida home, maybe alone, maybe with his grandson Kyle. 

“I don’t need much company when the Giants are in the playoffs,” he said. 

Bill Parcells doesn’t need much reason to believe, either.