Former Pittsburgh Steelers running back Jerome Bettis is now a television analyst, and on NFL Network he made a surprising prediction last week: He thinks his old coach, Bill Cowher, will coach the Giants next year.

The comment is notable because it’s the second consecutive summer that Bettis has publicly speculated about Cowher’s future — last year he correctly predicted that Cowher would leave Pittsburgh after 2006. But it’s even more notable because Bettis verbalized what has mostly been an unspoken assumption in NFL circles: Tom Coughlin is heading into his final season as the Giants’ head coach.

Cowher can only become the Giants’ coach in 2008 if the job is open, so by saying Cowher will lead Big Blue next year, Bettis was also saying Coughlin will get fired after this season. But neither Bettis nor anyone else at NFL Network acted as though the suggestion that the Giants’ job would be open next season was anything out of the ordinary.

Many fans thought — and hoped — that Coughlin would get fired after the Giants’ first-round playoff loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in January, and it was surprising when the team announced three days later that Coughlin had received a one-year contract extension, through the 2008 season. But that extension was standard operating procedure in the NFL, where teams rarely ask coaches to work into the final year of a contract for fear that the players will assume the coach is a lame duck and tune him out. Coughlin heads into 2007 likely needing to win a playoff game or two to keep his job.

That means Coughlin is on such a hot seat that anything short of a Coach of the Year-type season will result in his termination. And with expectations that high, it seems as if Coughlin is being set up to fail, which raises the question of why the Giants didn’t just fire him at the end of last season. The answer might be that the Giants’ front office, especially owner John Mara, thinks there will be a better crop of coaches available to replace Coughlin in January 2008 than there was in January 2007. Cowher, who won the Super Bowl with the Steelers after the 2005 season, is just one of the many coaches with impressive résumés who wasn’t available this year but who will be available next year.

Another is Bill Parcells, who said he was retiring when he walked away from the Dallas Cowboys in January, but then hedged in May and said he is not done with coaching. Parcells can never seem to make up his mind about whether he wants to leave the NFL, but he’ll be the coaching equivalent of an unrestricted free agent after the coming season. Parcells became the Giants’ head coach in 1983, when Big Blue had had just one winning season in the previous 10 years. He had the Giants in the playoffs by his second season, and made them one of the best teams in football for the rest of the decade, winning the Super Bowl in 1986 and 1990. Giants fans would be thrilled to get him back.

Marty Schottenheimer, who was fired as the San Diego Chargers’ head coach in February, could also interest theGiants next year. Schottenheimer has the same old-school approach to football as Coughlin, but Schottenheimer has changed with the times and doesn’t grate on modern players with needlessly strict team rules the way Coughlin does. Schottenheimer has made clear that he wants to get back into coaching, and that if the Chargers hadn’t waited until after all the available jobs were filled to fire him, he’d be coaching in the NFL this year. He would be a natural fit with the Giants next year.

And as long as he keeps winning at SouthernCal, NFLteams will at least consider hiring Pete Carroll, who has hinted that he would like to give the NFL another try. Even though Carroll’s stints with the Jets and New England Patriots were mostly disappointing, his success in the college game would make him a highly sought candidate if he ever declares an intention to coach in the NFL again.

Cowher, Parcells, Schottenheimer, and Carroll are among a large group of coaches who would, in the eyes of just about any Giants fan, represent a big improvement over Coughlin, whose career record with the Giants is 25–25. It would be hard to argue that the franchise is any better off now than it was when Coughlin replaced Jim Fassel three years ago, and if this is Coughlin’s last season, the Giants need to be ready to replace him with someone who would inject some life into the franchise. Cowher, Parcells, Schottenheimer, and Carroll would each do that.

The Giants had an opportunity to react to the disappointing ending of 2006 by making a big splash with a new coach, and instead they decided to stand still with the coach who got them to 8–8. But while keeping Coughlin around for another season seemed like a strange decision this year, it will be the right decision if it lands the team a hall of fame coach next year.