thanks interesting post. i would love to get bill sheridan's position on what happened this past year, but just judging from his demeanor we may never get that. i am sure though there will be some interesting insights as the years go on, or at least i hope there will, because this past year was very puzzling in some ways.

i am trying to stay up to watch the australian open men's tennis final and am getting caught up on the giants in the meantime. i just got done listening to the perry fewell interview on the official giant website, conducted by bob papi. i must say fewell impresses me, he has a sense of humor, and is very enthusiastic. i get the sense that he relates well to players and in some ways will be a taskmaster. the only thing which concerns me in recent days is that the giants seem to believe that minor tinkering is needed on defense. it is tempting to believe that bill sheridan was the overriding reason for this past season's debacles on defense, and perhaps there is a lot of truth to that, but it still seems to me that we must err on the side of believing that we need a lot more talent on D.

and though we lack information the giants have, i am not prepared to buy into the notion that kenny phillips will come back at full strength this year. it is smart for the giants to not appear to be in panic mode, but at the same time i hope the next few months will prove that in action, if not words, we realize that pretty significant restructuring on D is necessary. if that doesn't occur, and despite tim mara's strong words at the end of the year, i fear we may be in denial.

It's true that defense wins at this level. The way I see it is that more than ever,you must put extreme pressure on the opposing quarterback which changes everything. We were killed on defense last year for many reasons. In my mind the biggest factor was our inability to put extreme pressure on the opposing quarterback. If you think about it,all the success that Spags had was based on the blitz. He came from the Jimmy Johnson school of defense and Johnson's teams in Philly lived and died with the blitz. Sometimes you lose big if you blitz and (a) don't get there or (B) you don't have guys who can stop the run at linebacker and D.B. I believe that we have a solid corps of kids at D.B. and obviously an upgrade at safety is important. We have been thin at L.B. forever. We did try and address that with Sintim and with Goff and Kehl the year before. Pierce has played very well for us but he is losing a step and become injury prone. Georgia Tech has not been kind to us and except Keith Brookings is the anti-Penn State.
Peyton Manning,Tony Romo,Favre last year,Rogers in Green Bay,Brady in New England. There are some great quarterbacks in this league but every one except Peyton is average with someone in their face. We have some damn good players who have shown the ability. We need to get a stud in the middle and a stud or two at L.B. Robbins is done and Bernard was a huge mistake. Canty is not the answer. So,with only a few key additions and a coordinator who is creative with lots of blitz schemes in his head we are a top team again.Sheridan was simply in way over his head and with three years tenure Coughlin bears that one.

This must have been know in league circles and yet another reason that JF has not and will not become head coach of another NFL team. You look at this, the game management blunders (SF, MINN playoff games, TENN in 02, DAL on MNF in 03), the Baltimore disaster as OC it's easy to see why he's been only a candidate since he left NYG. With that said, there have been so many coaches who get chances with a less accomplished resume than fassel so all we can do is speculate.

psf it is true we have a nice core of players on D. but we also have a number of players who need to go, including (unfortunately) Robbins; Bernard; Clark; Pierce (unless he remains as kind of a reserve coach for the young LB's, hopefully to include Rolando McClain; no idea whether he has interest in that); Doughery; CC Brown; probably Rouse; and I would think that one or more other LB's need to go, including Wilkinson. I am not sure where we stand on Kehl and Goff, but neither has really shone so far. Also I am not happy with Johnson being a starting safety any longer (he still would be an acceptable to good reserve), and we have no idea what will happen with Kenny Phillips. He could be all pro he could have continuing health issues preventing him from playing at this level. We have a lot of work to do, and a lot of new players to bring in. Yet the Giants are talking as if we need tinkering. This is the source of my worries, and why I am hoping that kind of talk is simply for public consumption, so it does not appear we are desperate heading into free agency and the draft. my two cents.