Giant Coach Not Getting Reeve Review : Pro football: New York fans are angered at their team’s 3-9 record and are calling for his scalp. They might get it.

His face has become the symbol of the pro football season in New York, decorating the back pages of all the tabloids Monday after Monday. In another year, that might not be such a terrible fate. But this is 1995, when the Giants and Jets are vying for the worst record in the NFL, and the weekly mug shots of Dan Reeves peering out from the newsstands are taking on the appearance of wanted posters.

The man has achieved this level of notoriety both through his words and his deeds as coach of the Giants. If his counterpart with the Jets hasn’t received similar treatment, perhaps it’s because so little was expected of the team and Rich Kotite is more guarded in his comments. Unwittingly or otherwise, Reeves has managed to call attention to himself at a time when attention is the last thing either New York team is pleased to welcome.

One week after opening a can of controversy by stating his unhappiness with his role in the club’s personnel decisions, Reeves called a play whose failure raised the ire of the masses at Giants Stadium and set the stage for a 27-24 loss to the Bears. Then, given the chance to spell out his reasoning in lucid fashion 21 hours after the fact, he underlined the issue of his suitability for the job. To the astonishment of the media Monday, the coach indicated that he was thinking of the crowd’s wrath when he second-guessed himself and ordered Dave Brown to pass on fourth down with the score tied and the Giants needing four yards in the final minute of Sunday’s game.

“I had already told [Brown] to punt the ball,” he said, conjuring images of a pooch kick from shotgun formation that the Giants practice every week but employ on rare occasions. “He got in the huddle, and I said, ‘Call timeout and let’s talk about it.’ You know what the biggest thought was? ‘You’re not going to believe the crowd when they boo when you punt this football.’ And that was the thing that went through my mind.”

Set aside for the moment the idea of whether a punt truly was the best call with the Giants lined up on Chicago’s 32-yard line with 55 seconds remaining. Focus on the concept of an experienced and well-respected professional coach, a man who had taken three teams to the Super Bowl during a dozen years with the Broncos, changing his mind because he was spooked by the potential reaction of the home fans. If other coaches have been similarly swayed, they have kept it to themselves.

But then Reeves has a well-deserved reputation for being the most candid of his breed. The man is all too human in a position where the simple admission of humanity is unexpected. No one enjoys being booed, especially in his own stadium.

Not that it was the determining factor on Sunday. Reeves insisted the fourth-down pass, and not a 49-yard field-goal attempt by Brad Daluiso, was the best opportunity for the Giants to win. The vision of an angry mob was just something that flashed through the space between his headphones.

“I don’t know why that would be,” the coach explained. “I think if you were in contention, you wouldn’t worry about it because you’re more concerned about the game, but when you’re in a position of 3-8 and going through it, it enters into it. That wasn’t a (major) factor. You’re asking me what my thought process was. My thought process was to punt the football. There wasn’t any question about it. We were out of field-goal range.

“Trying to make a fourth-down situation is not a high-percentage deal, and the field goal was probably the poorest of the percentages because I knew what his limitations were. But then I said, ‘Is punting the ball really what I wanted to do?’ That’s the reason I called the timeout, and after thinking about it, punting wasn’t the best option, not because of the fans or anything. The decision was based on what I thought was the best to give us a chance to win the game.”

Considering the talent level -- which appears to be average in all but Reeves’ mind -- and the emotional state of the Giants, it’s likely that none of his options would have succeeded. Daluiso estimated that the odds were 50-50 on a field goal from 49 yards in the best of conditions and that the wind on Sunday reduced the chance to one in four. A failed attempt would have turned the ball over at Chicago’s 39-yard line. But the risk was high even with a punt.