david dieHl - New York Giants

Sullivan: Coughlin can’t explain Giants’ two-week collapse
By Tara Sullivan
The Record
Dec. 24, 2012
BALTIMORE – Tom Coughlin was always prepared for this football season to be a different sort
of coaching challenge, one that would need him to coax a championship team down from its
satisfied, exhausted perch and back into the daily grind of a new year. And some days, it seemed
the Giants had it all figured out, sitting atop the NFC East as recently as three weeks ago after a
50-point explosion against the Saints.
But true to the nature of this confounding 2012 season, what seemed true one week was upside
down the next, putting the Giants on a football roller coaster they never seemed able to steer. A
second straight debilitating, humiliating road loss Sunday in Baltimore leaves the Giants with
only a miniscule chance of reaching the playoffs; leaving a coach accustomed to having answers
all but speechless.
A 33-14 loss to the Ravens dropped an air of certainty over the Giants’ rocky season, but this
was not the kind of defining moment these defending Super Bowl champions were hoping for. A
glance up and down the final scorecard told the story of just how awful they played in a game
that had every ounce of must-win importance attached to it – 533 total yards to 186, 81
offensive plays to 45, 25 first downs to 11.
But as much as the “what just happened” was statistically obvious in the aftermath of
Baltimore’s dismantling, the “why” has no such clarity. And that’s what left Coughlin standing at
a postgame microphone as defeated, dazed and disappointed as he’s been in nine New York
years.
“What has happened over the course of the last couple of weeks is very difficult to explain,”
Coughlin said. “We had a resounding win against New Orleans and felt real good about
ourselves, and then I have no explanation as to why we’re in the position we’re in. … It’s
difficult, very difficult, very, very difficult. There are a lot of proud guys in that locker room that
are looking to me for answers. The answers are not easy ones.”
They never are when a season goes south. But the hard truth Coughlin may ultimately face, the
real reason behind being forced to admit “we’re flat-lining right now,” is that his team just might
not be good enough to defend its title.
Coughlin expected so much more in this clash of desperation, where his own team came in
clinging to its “win-two-and-we’re in’’ lifeline and his opponent pulled in, intent on breaking a
three-game slide. The Giants weren’t ready for the fight, and it was Ray Rice who buried their
no-show act for good, punctuating his 107-yard, touchdown-scoring day by concluding, “The
difference was, for us, I just think we had a little bit more sense of urgency because we knew
what was at stake. This was a championship game for us.”
This was supposed to be a playoff game for the Giants. But here goes Baltimore, heading into
the playoffs as AFC North champs, and here lie the Giants, hoping for improvement and praying
for help.