New York Giants Offensive Coordinator Jason Garrett Reflects on 9/11 Aftermath

Giants offensive coordinator Jason Garrett, then a backup quarterback on the team, reflected on the day that changed our country forever and the outpouring of support and grief in the days after

Author:
Patricia Traina
Publish date:
Sep 10, 2021 10:39 AM EDT

In the early morning hours of September 11, 2001, Giants offensive coordinator Jason Garrett was a backup quarterback on the Giants team who, after flying back following a 31-20 loss to the Denver Broncos, wearily trudged through the terminal at Newark Airport as passengers began to line up for morning flights.

Unbeknownst to Garrett and his teammates, one group of passengers preparing to board a United Airlines flight bound for San Francisco had among them a group of radicals part of a horrific plot aimed at crashing hijacked aircraft into prominent U.S. landmarks in New York and Washington.

"Obviously, it's a tragic time in our country's history and just having been here, the memories are really vivid for me," Garrett said Thursday. "I can remember so many specific details of the day and certainly the week and the time to follow. It just was a really, really sad time."

Thousands of lives were lost, and to this day, people still struggle with health-related issues triggered by the release of asbestos and other harmful chemicals that were propelled into the environment.

"I actually was talking to (Former Giants Quarterback) Kerry Collins about this the other night, it was just amazing how this area and our country, in many ways our world, came together after 9/11," Garrett said.

"I can remember we were living in the city at the time, and I can remember we were going to go donate blood, and literally they said, ‘We've had so many people want to donate blood, we do not need any more blood.’ To us, that was always like this amazing thing, how everybody rallied around the cause after such a tragedy."

In the days following the attacks, the Giants, as a team, sprung into action with countless hours of community service, collecting supplies and donations to help support the first responders and families who lost loved ones in the tragedy.

Cornerback Jason Sehorn gathered supplies from Home Depot delivered to the Jacob Javits Center, one of the relief efforts distribution points, and running backs Tiki Barber and Greg Comella collected toys and supplies for the children of first responders lost during rescue and recovery efforts.

"I think we felt fortunate as members of this team to be able to try to help the community in some ways. We spent a lot of time at firehouses and visiting police departments and some of the people who lost their dads or their moms. At least you felt like you were trying to do something," Garrett said.

The weekend after 9/11 saw a weekend without football games while a grieving nation began to pick up the pieces, a move that team co-owner Wellington Mara, one of the most influential voices n the league, supported.

When football finally did return on Sunday, September 23, the outpouring of support the Giants witnessed when they visited and defeated the Kansas City Chiefs was like nothing they could have imagined.

High-profiled members of the Chiefs organization sported baseball caps emblazoned with the logos of the New York City Fire and Police departments, and Kansas City, Missouri Mayor Kay Barnes declared that day of the Giants-Chiefs game as “New York Day.”

Perhaps the most touching movement of all was the reaction of the Chiefs' home crowd. One of the most fiercely loyal groups in all of sports, the crowd embraced the Giants as if they were their own. Several “We love New York” banners popped up throughout the crowd, which also greeted the Giants players and coaches with standing ovations.

And if that wasn't enough, the crowd passed around a New York fireman’s boot to collect donations to help support relief efforts, a donation that the Chiefs organization matched.

"One of the things when you reflect back on that time, what was amazing is I think we were at our best in our response and how everyone came together," Garrett said.

"It wasn't about being liberal or conservative, it was about being an American and it was about being a human being. I thought we did a great job in this area and all across our country rallying around the cause."