Giants’ OC Mike Sullivan: No time for complete overhaul

If you are expecting to seem dramatic changes this Sunday with Ben McAdoo gone and Mike Sullivan, who learned at the feet of Kevin Gilbride, now solely in charge of the New York Giants’ offense you are going to be disappointed.

There is no time right now to write a new playbook or overhaul an offense that the Giants began to install way back in the spring. Nor is there the experienced, talented personnel to make changes with.

“We’re 12 games into it. We have our personnel. In terms of some subtle things, I think anytime you’re the final decision maker, there is some latitude to maybe tweak a thing here or there — as far as installing a streak read-run, a shoot offense that was here from 2004 to 2011, that’s not going to happen,” Sullivan said. “In all honesty, right now, it’s about just trying to come up with a plan that fits who we have and how we can attack Dallas.”

If you were expecting Sullivan to sound gleeful about now having a free hand to run the offense, again you will be disappointed.

“You look at all of the circumstances of the previous week and coming into the events of this week. First word that comes to mind would be sad, the first thing that comes to mind in terms of what happened with Ben (McAdoo) and Jerry (Reese) is thinking about things that I could have done differently. What more I could have done. What more the other offensive coaches could have done and the players and there’s a human element to this,” Sullivan said. “It goes beyond what’s on Twitter or message boards, etc. It’s families. So, it is sad and then you look at just the circumstances as they presented themselves and where we’re at right now and just zeroing in on winning a football game.”

Sullivan also gave a lengthy answer as to why the Giants are starting Eli Manning at quarterback on Sunday. Here is all of it:

“OK, in terms of Eli and how we feel about him compared to how we feel about Geno (Smith) or how we feel about Davis (Webb). All three guys are individuals that bring certain talents to the table and do things that can help us win and I’ll just be clear right now, I thought Geno did a lot of good things against the Raiders. He from day one has been someone that’s had a great attitude. He’s been a hard worker and he’s improved as a player. In terms of this particular game, this opponent. In terms of experience in our system. In terms of all of the ins and outs that go with that. In terms of adjustments that we’re going to make. In terms of things that we’re going to want to do both in the run game and the pass game, you know, we feel that Eli Manning gives us the best chance to win and that’s nothing disparaging to anybody else. We looked at a body of work and what we’re going to try to accomplish and how we’re going to try to attack Dallas, that was something that – and, again, Spags (Steve Spagnuolo) wanted our feedback. He wanted to talk. I think he mentioned to you guys he wanted to talk to the offensive coaches to get a little bit better feel for kind of the specifics. We gave him that feedback and that’s the decision that was made.”