Change for 2010 practically is inevitable, so why should the Giants wait?
The defense is playing flatter than Bill Sheridan’s emotions. Head coach Tom Coughlin and linebacker Antonio Pierce talked Sheridan, the first-year defensive coordinator, out of his preference to be away from the mayhem, making cool and detached decisions from above. But after 11 games, even sideline-to-booth will not remove Sheridan far enough to save the Giants’ season.
When Steve Spagnuolo left his post as Giants defensive coordinator after last season, Coughlin obviously felt secondary coach Peter Giunta, defensive coordinator for the Super Bowl-winning Rams in 1999, was not the better replacement than Sheridan, but perhaps Coughlin thought wrong.
It is time to find out. With five games to go and a postseason berth still within the Giants’ grasp, the alternative is to await a turnaround that cannot come without drastic change.
Osi Umenyiora — who walked out on a Sheridan-run meeting during the preseason, only to return with full apologies — is not performing like he is totally sorry. It might be the fault of Umenyiora, routinely getting run over, or it might be Sheridan’s. Regardless, when your best player is not playing like it, his direct supervisor ultimately cannot survive.
And it’s not as if Coughlin has no experience making a late-season change of coordinators. In 2006, he fired offensive coordinator John Hufnagel (replacing him with current coordinator Kevin Gilbride) before a Game 16 win at Washington that helped rescue a postseason berth.
There have been multiple successful ice statues on sidelines. It’s obvious there is not going to be one here, however, not following the emotional and inspirational Spagnuolo, not relying on many of the same defensive players who thrived under Spagnuolo all the way to the Super Bowl XLII defeat of the mighty Patriots.
The Giants came in waves at Tom Brady, and kept coming last year all the way to 11-1 until injuries broke them down. Last season’s late fade signaled for reinforcements, and a spending spree seemed to add strength to the team’s strength, its defensive line.
Now the embarrassment of riches has turned into just plain embarrassment.
There is little pass rush to mask slow linebackers and the gaping hole left by the loss of safety Kenny Phillips, too many assignments being blown. In other words, too much underachievement. Worse, as shockingly demonstrated in Denver, there seems zero urgency to get things turned around.
The Giants couldn’t get a stop in the end to save themselves against the Chargers, were bailed out from two late Falcons touchdowns mostly by an overtime coin flip. Thursday night, they were challenged to stop a fourth-and-5 and couldn’t, left Brandon Stokley ridiculously open over the middle for the put-away touchdown, and they never stopped the run, where it all has to start.
Yesterday, Coughlin called his input into the defense ongoing in both good times and bad and refused to indict Sheridan any more than the head coach would himself.
“There isn’t anybody, starting with me, satisfied with anything,” Coughlin said. “It’s not one individual at fault.”
Of course, it’s not Sheridan to blame for Phillips being lost for the season, Antonio Pierce getting old, Justin Tuck playing with a bum shoulder, Chase Blackburn being essentially a backup, and Barry Cofield and Fred Robbins being not fully recovered from offseason surgeries. Michael Boley has been hurt, Chris Canty so far mostly a dud, and the offseason is starting to look as bad as the season.
The defensive coordinator would rather not be at field level, though, and there are players who leave that same impression. Sheridan, successful with the linebackers prior to his promotion, surely knows his stuff, but coaches a defense that refuses to get physical.
So if the pick-me-up is not coming from this guy, there is nothing to lose by trying another.