PHOENIX -- New York Giants coach Tom Coughlin's table was right next to Philadelphia Eagles coach Chip Kelly's table at the NFC coaches breakfast this morning at the NFL owners meeting, and Coughlin perked up when asked about the Eagles' new head man.

"He should have been coaching for me!" Coughlin said. "I offered him a job one time. We interviewed Chip for a quality control position a long time ago."

Coughlin said that Kelly and Dave DeGuglielmo, who was a Giants assistant from 2004-08, were good friends and that DeGuglielmo recommended Kelly for a job while Kelly was coaching at New Hampshire. Coughlin remembers being impressed by Kelly, but he said Kelly wanted to be the quarterbacks coach and all the Giants had open at the time was the quality control coach job.

"We thought highly of him when we brought him in," Coughlin said. "Obviously, he's done very well."

Andy Reid is the only Eagles coach against whom Coughlin has competed since becoming coach of the Giants in 2004, and he admits that there will be challenges associated with the unknown aspect of what Kelly plans to run when the Giants play the Eagles for the first time in 2013.

"We're going to prepare for what the young coach has done so very, very well," Coughlin said. "What else would you do? And we're going to have preseason games and we're going to have to do some speculating, I'm sure."