KEVIN Gilbride has been on the other side before. He has been a head coach in the NFL, and he knows the things that bother a head coach, that concern him, that cause him to rub his temples and massage his eyes, that make him want to step out in front of the world and channel your inner Al Haig and shout it at the top of your lungs.
“I’m in charge here!” you want to proclaim.
“It’s the right thing to do,” the Giants’ offensive coordinator said yesterday. “It’s up to the rest of us, staff and players, to carry out the coach’s message. But it is his message.”
This is what Tom Coughlin had done about an hour before this, on the practice field of the Timex Performance Center: He reminded the world — as he reminded his team a few days before — that no matter where the slings and arrows of outraged fans and indignant sportswriters might be aimed, they should always land on his desk, in his lap, on his forehead.
On a brief Veteran’s Day practice session when the Giants welcomed wounded warriors to watch them work, Coughlin invoked the timeless slogan of a former wartime president.
The buck, he loudly declared, stops here.
“I’m responsible for everything that happens on the field,” Coughlin said. “It’s not the quarterback. It’s not the assistant coaches. The decision is mine. I was asked the other day if I regretted making a decision toward the end of the game, and my answer is this: Do I regret the fumbled snap on a field goal? Do I regret a play where we thought we’d be fourth-and-inches and instead were fourth-and-10? If you’re going to regret one thing, you have to regret it all.”
He paused, for emphasis.
Then said, “No one else is to blame.” For emphasis.
This is who Coughlin always has been, even in those seasons before he won the Super Bowl, when he wasn’t always the most popular fellow in town. He always has preached accountability and always has been first in line to show what it means to be accountable. Even when his reign was teetering in 2006, when the first few weeks of 2007 seemed earmarked for doom, Coughlin never sought excuses.
He never went searching for scapegoats.
“This season,” he said after the Eagles eliminated the Giants in January 2007, ending the season at 8-9 and pushing Coughlin precariously close to the unemployment line, “is mine to answer for. It’s a part of my permanent record. And I have to figure out a way for us to be better than that.”
That, as much as any perceived transformation from dictator to player’s best friend, probably explained why the Giants were able to maximize their talents a year later and win the most satisfying Super Bowl any team has ever won. You might not have always agreed with Coughlin if you played for him or worked under him, but you knew he was going to be an adult about it. Even with his career on the line.
And with a season very much on the line now.
“We’re accountable in this room,” quarterback Eli Manning said in the Giants’ football-shaped locker room, before heading off to enjoy the rest of bye week. “And I think he makes sure it stays that way.”
Accountability won’t improve the Giants’ defensive performance in the red zone, or make the offense more dangerous in the red zone, won’t necessarily stop silly penalties and missed tackles and blown blocks. It won’t necessarily allow the Giants the five more wins they likely will need to qualify for the playoffs.
But it does send a loud message of who the Giants are, and a louder explanation about what they’ve been. Nobody absorbed more heat than Coughlin’s coordinators after Sunday’s 21-20 loss to the Chargers, not surprising since, when a coach is as safe and entrenched as Coughlin is, the bullets tend to stray toward secondary targets.
“I reminded them first thing Monday,” Coughlin said. “What happened, that’s on me.”
Yesterday, he expanded the audience a bit. Delivering the same message. But the people who needed to know … they already knew.
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com