There was never a secret that Mike Sullivan would be a candidate for the Giants’ vacant offensive coordinator job, a position that opened up last week when Kevin Gilbride – under fire for the demise of the offense this past season – announced his retirement.
Sullivan arrives to interview for the job this week, as he will meet with the Giants either Tuesday or Wednesday. He certainly knows his way around the Giants’ practice facility, having served as the receivers coach under Gilbride and head coach Tom Coughlin from 2004-2009 and then from 2010 and 2011 moving to work with Eli Manning as the quarterbacks coach.
The past two years Sullivan served as the Buccaneers offensive coordinator, having great success in 2012, but far less in 2013. Sullivan, 46, was jettisoned from the Bucs staff when Greg Schiano’s entire coaching staff was fired following this past season. There were rumbling in Tampa that even if Schiano had survived the 4-12 season he would have replaced Sullivan.
Coughlin certainly is very familiar with Sullivan, having brought him into the NFL back in 2002 as an assistant in Jacksonville. When Sullivan went to Tampa, he installed the Giants offense designed by Coughlin and run by Gilbride and that could either work for him or against him in his bid to claim the Giants offensive coordinator job. A day after the 7-9 season ended co-owner John Mara proclaimed that the offense was “broken’’ and he and general manager Jerry Reese may break away from the offensive system the Giants have used for a decade.