To the surprise of absolutely no one, the Giants fired defensive coordinator Bill Sheridan yesterday, a day after allowing 40 points for a ridiculous fifth time to close out an 8–8 season. Tom Coughlin made the decision to can Sheridan, although it was Giants co-owner John Mara who seemed most upset about how the team performed down the stretch.
Mara said it was “probably the most disappointed” he’d ever been in the team (which his family has owned since forever), adding a bunch of things that you could have overheard from anyone in the Giants Stadium parking lot two Sundays ago: “The status quo is not acceptable on any level”; there’s been a “lack of effort”; and this team suffered from a “lack of identity.” Tom Coughlin and GM Jerry Reese were given assurances that their jobs were safe, but just about everybody else will be evaluated. In Sheridan’s case, that evaluation didn’t need to take very long: He’d butted heads with Coughlin and Osi Umenyiora before the season even started, so one imagines it probably wouldn’t have taken such a spectacularly poor effort the last two weeks for him to be out of a job.
Though the Giants haven’t reached out to him yet, Dick Jauron — who coached under Coughlin in Jacksonville — appears to be the front-runner to replace Sheridan. But other changes are afoot, too. For example, the Giants’ veteran leadership council, which was credited with bonding the Super Bowl team while also making Coughlin seem like less of a drill sergeant, appears to have outlived its usefulness. The job now is to figure out what else on the team has outlived its usefulness. We imagine there will be no shortage of findings by Reese and company.
Giants owner Mara promises change [NYP]
Sacked! New York Giants fire defensive coordinator Bill Sheridan [NYDN]
Giants Make a Change, Still Stinging From Failure [NYT]