Bill Sheridan returns with his head held high

By the time his tenure with the Giants came to an end, Bill Sheridan had become a symbol of one of the worst defenses in franchise history and the face of a season that began with five straight wins and ended without a playoff berth. There was little doubt that he'd be fired as defensive coordinator soon after that 2009 season ended and the Giants had given up 85 points in their final two games.

So what would Sheridan have done differently? Not much.

Sheridan returns Sunday to face the Giants for the first time since his disastrous one-year stint as coordinator. He's a linebackers coach for the Dolphins, and he's spent the last week preparing to face many of the players he once coached. Players who, he said, did not play well enough to keep him here in the first place.

"In hindsight, I was never disappointed in how I coordinated, whether it was the scheme or how we game-planned or how I dealt with the players," Sheridan told Newsday. "Obviously, I was doing what I thought was the best on a day-to-day, moment-to-moment basis. I don't look back and think 'shoulda, woulda, coulda.' The bottom line is we did not play well enough to support me being there as a coordinator."

Sheridan did say he takes "full responsibility" for the defensive collapse in 2009. But even in trying to pinpoint what exactly went haywire that season, he again put the onus on the field and not on the sideline.

"It's never one thing, I assure you that, because if it was, you'd try to correct it," he said. "We gave up a whole bunch of points and that's just not acceptable. You can try to nitpick and find things and everybody wants to talk about the injuries we incurred and of course that all is part of it. But the bottom line is I was put in charge of the defense and we didn't play well enough."

Sheridan has been back in the New York area several times since then. The Dolphins make the trip here once a year to face the Jets, his team's AFC East rival. But Sunday he's coming back to face the Giants. Many Giants fans put Sheridan in a group of names that have become synonymous with despair (Allie Sherman, Ray Handley, Joe Pisarcik and, more recently, Matt Dodge), but the coach said he's looking forward to the reunion.

More interestingly, so are his former players.

"I had a great relationship with coach Sheridan, so I'm looking forward to it, to be honest with you," safety Kenny Phillips said. "He's a good person."

"I'm going to look for him to say hi to him," defensive end Dave Tollefson said. "I thought he did a good job . . . There's definitely no hard feelings."

But not everyone is planning a cuddly reunion. Defensive tackle Chris Canty said he will greet Sheridan because "that's just professional courtesy." Linebacker Michael Boley said he will speak to Sheridan "if I happen to see him before the game, warming up or whatever."

It will be fascinating to watch and see if or how Sheridan and Osi Umenyiora interact. It was a blowup between the two early in the 2009 season that sent Umenyiora storming out of the facility and set the tone for a tenuous rest of the year.

Sheridan stays in touch with many Giants players. He said he tries to text each of them once or twice a year. And he said he is grateful to Tom Coughlin not only for giving him a chance as a coordinator but for recommending him as a linebackers coach in Miami after he fired him.

"There are few people I have more respect for in the coaching profession than Tom Coughlin," Sheridan said.

Sheridan was with the Giants for five years, the first four as a linebackers coach. He won a Super Bowl ring with the 2007 team.

"In the big picture of things, I had a fantastic experience in New York," he said.

But Sheridan followed Steve Spagnuolo as coordinator, and the two men could not have been more different. Spagnuolo was a fiery motivator. Sheridan was more a tactician, a coordinator who at first wanted to call plays from the coaches' box rather than the sideline.

"That's a tough situation to step into," Tollefson said. "You're following up Spags, who was kind of a folk hero around here. He engineered quite a few great defensive efforts. And he was just a different style. [Sheridan] was a numbers guy. He did a great job with how he coached. Maybe the guys who were here, we just had a hard time catching on with that style."

Sheridan and defensive line coach Mike Wauffle were the only staffers let go after the season. Sheridan said he didn't feel like a scapegoat, and some players acknowledged that, as Sheridan said, had they performed better, his stint might have been longer.

"It wasn't all his fault," Canty said. "None of us were without sin."

"You look back on that season and there is some stuff we as players could have done to help him a little more," Tollefson noted.

Sheridan, 52, said he hopes he gets another opportunity to be a coordinator in the NFL. If he does, he said he will not change his approach.

"I'm not going to say I look back and think I'd do this completely different or if I get another opportunity, I'm going to do it totally differently," he said. "I don't think like that at all. We went into it very conscientiously and very diligently and very decisively about how we were going to put it together and we did it. The bottom line is on Sundays, we didn't play well enough. I don't have a lot of regrets that way."