The preseason has just started, and already the Giants defense has undergone an interesting change. First-year coordinator Bill Sheridan, a staunch advocate of doing his job on game days from way up yonder in the press box, was down on the field in Monday night’s opener, right in the middle of the hubbub.
“He came up to us and said he was going to be downstairs,” defensive end Justin Tuck said. “A lot of guys were surprised by it because he spent the last four years upstairs. It’s good to have your coordinator down there, he can kind of direct traffic a little bit better downstairs.”
Patrolling the sideline, Sheridan made the defensive calls and had to like most of what he saw as the Giants beat the Panthers 24-17. His starting unit — minus cornerbacks Corey Webster and Aaron Ross, defensive tackle Fred Robbins and linebacker Michael Boley — did not allow any points in three first-quarter series before taking a seat. It was a forceful first step for a unit that’s been bolstered by major reinforcements, incredibly deep up front and expected to be one of the top outfits in the league.
Sheridan inherits a ready-made defense orchestrated the past two years by Steve Spagnuolo, who rocketed to assistant-coach stardom after the 2007 Super Bowl run and parlayed the success into the head coaching job with the Rams. Tom Coughlin picked Sheridan, the studious linebackers coach, as the new defensive coordinator and there was never a doubt he could handle the promotion from a technical standpoint.
Sheridan is less outwardly emotional and intense as Spagnuolo, a difference hammered home by Sheridan’s preference for calling the game from upstairs. Spagnuolo was down in the trenches, where his players wanted him.
Why upstairs? “Because you want to make logical, calculated decisions on your play-calling,” Sheridan said in the mid-June mini-camp. “And really that is not as complicated as you think, either. I think up in the box you have a little calmer atmosphere. You are not down on the sidelines where there can be a lot of mayhem.”
Guess again.
“Well, he may have thought that but when we discussed it I expressed my thoughts, and that’s what we’re currently trying to do,” Coughlin said yesterday. “Why is this such an issue? I like the defensive coordinator to be on the sideline because I think we communicate better. It’s not a big deal, it’s just a preference of mine, that’s all.”
It’s also a preference of the players.
“You can feel the emotion of the game, the play-calling, the aggressiveness, you can’t really see that from the box,” cornerback Terrell Thomas said. “On the field you can see it.”
Players were not shy in voicing their opinion on the matter.
“We didn’t want him to be up there,” linebacker Danny Clark said. “At the end of the day, the guy that’s running our show, we want him to lay his eyes on us, and vice versa. We want to see what he’s thinking, what’s his mode or mood. That’s like a head coach being up in the box, you wouldn’t have that. He’s the head coach of our defense, and we definitely benefit from him being down on the field.”
paul.schwartz@nypost.com