Tom Coughlin, Nat Berhe, Dallas Reynolds
Tom Coughlin and the Giants beat the awful Redskins on Sunday. So what?
((AP Photo/Mark Zaleski))
EAST RUTHERFORD — You can see where this is going now. Soon after the Giants play their final game, co-owner John Mara will speak to the media and demand better results – I really mean it this time! – from a 6-10 team that has failed to make the playoffs for a third straight season under Tom Coughlin.
He'll talk about the injuries. He'll talk about the adjustment with Eli Manning and a new offensive coordinator. He'll point to those two Super Bowl titles and maybe even sacrifice a coordinator (again) as he defends the head coach that nobody wants to see get fired.
Hard to blame him, right? It is far easier to use any signs of life to stand behind Coughlin – and the New York Post is reporting that it's "99.9 percent sure" that the Giants will do just that – rather than make wholesale changes. It's easier to blame the walking wounded and lousy luck than admit that the Giants have been a poorly coached team the past two seasons.
It's a harsh assessment, but that's what you're looking at when a team blows a 21-point lead against a Jacksonville team that has lost 12 of its other 13 games, or when a team gives up 350 rushing yards in one game in Seattle, or when a team uses the nickel defense for an entire game against LeSean McCoy and the Eagles and isn't completely set when a touchdown pass is thrown in a loss to Indianapolis.
The score in that one, in case anyone has forgotten, was 40-10 early in the fourth quarter — one of nine losses over the past two years by 16 or more points — and that was with an additional week to prepare after the bye week.
Well, the Giants will have to win their final two games just to match those lousy results, against the 6-8 Rams and a 9-5 Eagles team that got its doors blown off by Tony Romo and Dallas on Sunday night. Maybe a pair of victories, which means this team will finish with four in a row to close out the season, will make it easier for fans to be comfortable with Mara standing pat.
But right now? This is a still team that lost seven in a row in the heart of the season, one year after losing six in a row out of the gates. This is a team that doesn't have a quality victory since, what, crushing the Packers a few days after Thanksgiving in 2012? Has it really been that long?
Because you know what usually happens when a team misses the playoffs for three straight seasons? It makes major changes, and that usually starts with the coaching staff.
If Mara resists that, he risks scratching another year off Eli Manning's prime. He risks finding his franchise in the same position that it's in now, playing out the string and finding false hope after a couple meaningless wins, and then what?