There is nothing strained in this New England-New York relationship between coaching colleagues. They're friends.

Both men became head coaches in 1991 after helping Bill Parcells and the Giants win their second Super Bowl.

Belichick was the Giants' defensive coordinator and secondary coach. Coughlin was the receivers coach. Day after day, their units opposed each other in passing drills, trying to get the best of the other.

"We had a good relationship," Belichick said. "Tom was a good guy to work with. He's smart and I think we both learned a lot from each other about different receiver techniques and coverages. He would help us. We'd help them, both in preparing for that particular game and also concepts."

The cooperation obviously won't be there on Saturday night at Giants Stadium when the Patriots (15-0) try to become the first NFL team to win all 16 regular-season games.

All that separates them from a place in history is the Giants (10-5), who really have nothing at stake. Win or lose, they are going to play the Buccaneers in Tampa, Fla., next weekend in an NFC wild-card playoff game.

The Patriots will have a bye.

"Our objective is to win," Coughlin has said repeatedly when asked whether he would rest any players this weekend. "That's what we work for; that's what we prepare for; that's what we practice for. And it will be no different this week. Having said that, we acknowledge the fact that this is an exceptional Patriots team that we are playing."

The response is exactly what Belichick expected.

"We have a lot of respect for their football team, Tom and the job he does, and the organization," Belichick said. "They are tough and they are physical and we play them every year in preseason so we have a good sense of what they are all about."

It is somewhat fitting that Belichick and Coughlin should be meeting in such a historic game at Giants Stadium. When they coached on the same staff from 1988-90, they were considered the likely heirs should Parcells leave the Giants.

Belichick was the young defensive genius, Coughlin the tough, street-wise coach who best embodied the Parcells approach.

Neither was around when Parcells left shortly after the Giants beat the Bills in the Super Bowl in January 1991.

Coughlin got the head coaching job at Boston College, and Belichick was hired to coach the Cleveland Browns. Ray Handley wound up replacing Parcells in what turned out to be a disastrous hire for the Giants.

"We discussed the circumstances under which we were approached and perhaps the strategy that we would go about because we were coaching on a very successful football team and we did not want to be any kind of factor in any distraction, so we were very aware of that," Coughlin recalled Thursday of the post-1990 season. "To Bill Parcells' credit, he was very good about all that stuff."

When asked about Belichick's coaching ability back then, Coughlin said it was only a matter of time before an NFL team hired him.

"He was a very young man who had so much experience and so much on the ball," Coughlin said.

Belichick lasted five seasons in Cleveland before rejoining Parcells as an assistant in New England and with the Jets. He got the Patriots' job in 2000 and has led them to three Super Bowls.

Coughlin, 61, became an NFL head coach with Jacksonville in 1994 and coached the Jaguars through 2002. He became the Giants coach in 2004. He is still looking for his first championship.

Patriots tight end Kyle Brady has played for both men.

"Coach Coughlin was tough, he was intense, he had that reputation and (they're) very similar in a lot of ways," Brady said. "The strength program was the same, the structure of the day and how we did things was basically the same, but different personalities. Coach Coughlin's more of an offensive kind of guy and Coach Belichick obviously has his roots in defense."

Besides the perfect regular season, the Patriots also will be looking for a couple of individual records.