What does a QC coach do?

Good question. Basically everything. The Giants today officially named Kevin Gilbride Jr. as their new offensive quality control coach -- although he's been at it for a while now -- and in the announcement Tom Coughlin described the general duties that come with the position.

“In this day and age, your coaches are relying on the quality control coaches’ ability to take off segments and situations (from game tapes) before they can start to game plan," Coughlin said. "It’s a grinder’s job. It’s very much a behind-the-scenes job. They are responsible for self-scout. They are responsible for the next opponent and he has already started, because very shortly we will be on our divisional opponents. During the season, he has to provide us with self-scout information on a Monday night, get the next opponent off and he runs the scout squad. And when you talk about professional football, and you talk about the quality of your practices, those scout squads have to be run to perfection.”

Gilbride Jr., who is 30 and apparently an early riser -- "Kevin happens to be an early morning guy and I like that,” Coughlin said -- spent the last three seasons coaching wide receivers at Temple. Coughlin said he considered him three years ago but only hired him now as everyone moved up one spot to fill Chris Palmer's vacancy at quarterbacks coach. Sean Ryan, the new wide receivers coach, had been the QC guy for three years.

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The old man apparently didn't write him a letter of recommendation for ths job.

“In terms of getting into coaching, my wife and I did everything we could to discourage, not encourage, because we know it’s a challenging life and there are a lot of potential pitfalls," said Kevin Gilbride Sr., the offensive coordinator. "He was adamant that he wanted to get into it and he’s been very fortunate. He made a decision he wanted to try pro football. And again our efforts to discourage were met with non-compliance. He was fortunate enough to get the interview with Tom, and Tom was impressed enough with his knowledge of the computer and the things that he’ll have to do in the quality control position to bring him on board.”

By the way, that's probably the last time you'll see a reference to "Kevin Gilbride Sr." Since quality control coaches are typically quite annonymous, you can rest assured that verey time I write about the offensive coordinator for the Giants I'll just leave it at "Kevin Gilbride."

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A few notes as we creep closer to the free agency period: It doesn't seem like the Giants are making a big push to re-sign LB Danny Clark or DT Fred Robbins before they have a chance to test the market. That doesn't necessarily mean that the Giants won't take them back, especially at a discount if other teams aren't showing interest. And as I've been told a few times, the Giants are typically coy this time of the year so their lack of communication and attention with a player does not necessarily mean a lack of interest ... It also appears that David Carr will at least test free agency long enough to see if he can find a place with more snaps. He re-signed with the Giants last year before free agency began ... The Saints will reportedly NOT put a franchise tag on safety Darren Sharper. He was a free agent last year, though, and the Giants didn't bite. Maybe they will this year considering the disarray of the position after Kenny Phillips was injured. And since Sharper has made a living intercepting Eli Manning passes, it would at least be a fun stat to chart during training camp if in fact the Giants did sign him and bring him in for a year ... Here's an interesting idea that was told to me today: What about giving Gerris Wilkinson a shot at competing for the middle linebacker job? He played middle linebacker his last two years at Georgia Tech and led the team in tackles each of those seasons. I'm not saying that's what the Giants will do -- heck, I'm not even sure they'll tender the guy, although it's a pretty low-risk maneuver -- but all I'm saying is someone planted the idea in my head. Any thoughts?

(Photo: AP)