david dieHl - New York Giants

The Coughlin Corner
Week 16
By Michael Eisen
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – The Coughlin Corner, Giants.com’s exclusive weekly interview with head
coach Tom Coughlin:
Q: You essentially have to win your last two games to go to the playoffs, just as you did last year.
Some players have said that the experience of previously being in this situation is helpful now. Others,
to quote Jason Pierre-Paul, think that’s “bull-crap.” What are your thoughts on that?
Coughlin: “We have two games to play and we have to win both games to get in the playoffs. That’s my
take on that. Just because we’ve been there before and had our backs to the wall and we performed
and did well, we have some inconsistencies this year that, quite frankly, have upset me to the point
where I really don’t want to be historical. I want to see the consistency of effort and performance that I
think we’re capable of and I’m trying to figure out, like everybody else is and I’ve talked to the team
about, the peaks - I’ve done that. It’s not like they haven’t heard it coming. But there are some other
issues. The issues are performance. You have to go play. We’ve had pretty good practices. I don’t have
any complaint with last Thursday or Friday. I don’t. Why don’t we play better on Sunday? That’s a very
good question. The bigger the games, the more fun it is, the more you look forward to it and so these
are the games. This a whole season wrapped up in two weeks, one game at a time.”
Q: Numerous players have repeated your comments about the team’s inconsistencies. Are you glad
they’re talking about it or concerned they will become obsessed about finding a reason for it?
Coughlin: “You are what you are. You have to discuss what the heck is wrong with your team and to do
the things that we’ve done and beat the teams we’ve beaten and lose to the teams we’ve lost to by
what we’ve lost by, in the manner that we’ve lost, it needs to be recognized. Throw the word
consistency out. Call it whatever you want. Why aren’t we on an ascending line? That’s the word I was
using with our team. We need to be ascending. Not leveled off and not going backwards, but ascending
at this time of the year because it’s discussed by every team, even the teams that are in the playoffs
now. If you listen closely, they want to be playing the best football that they can when the tournament
starts. They want to be playing their best. They don’t want to be asking questions about, ‘Are we going
to do this or are we going to do that?’ You don’t want to be asking those questions. You want those
answered. When you go to work you want everybody on the same page.”
Q: How helpful is it psychologically for the players to know that they control their own destiny? Does
that make a big difference to them?
Coughlin: “We have literally taken that approach since the bye. But now the way I say it is you have your
toes on the ledge. You’re kind of doing this (leans over and looks down as if he’s on a ledge) a little bit.
You’re either going to make it or you’re not going to make it. There isn’t any more breathing room.
There’s no margin for error for where you want to get to. We’re back to the 'finish' theme, the 'finish'
mantra. We’ve been here before and we’ve taken an entire season to discuss this because of things that
have happened prior to us going in that direction. Well, we’re no different right now. Win two games.
That probably doesn’t get discussed. You will have been 4-2 in your last six. If you split the last two, you
didn’t finish the way you needed to. You learned a great lesson about finishing the year before and you
didn’t finish the way you wanted to this year.”