TOM Coughlin walked into the press room wearing a blue shirt with a white “NY” over the heart, and you couldn’t help but wonder how much longer he will get to wear it.
His team is in trouble again and he is in trouble again.
He isn’t Dead Man Walking yet, but if this keeps up, the plank will be waiting for him.
The worst possible way for Coughlin to open the 2007 season, given the way his dysfunctional Giants closed the 2006 season, was with The Worst Team In Football.
The Eric Mangini-Chad Pennington-Kellen Clemens Jets? They showed some fight in the fourth quarter in Baltimore.
The Bobby Petrino-Joey Harrington Falcons? They scared the Jaguars.
The Herm Edwards-Damon Huard Chiefs? They can’t score, but they haven’t played at Arrowhead yet.
The Lane Kiffin-Josh McCown Raiders? They should have beaten the Broncos at Mile High Stadium.
The Cam Cameron-Trent Green Dolphins? They nearly beat the Redskins, and yielded eight fewer points to the Cowboys than Big Blue did.
The Dick Jauron-J.P. Losman Bills? They had to be emotionally frazzled by the Kevin Everett scare.
The Sean Payton-Drew Brees Saints? They opened against Peyton Manning and have yet to play in the Superdome.
The Coughlin-Eli Manning Giants? Their defense is a shameful laughingstock, devoid of playmakers, pride and poise and coordination, and the litany of injuries and mindless discipline that has stalked the Coughlin Era gives anguished Giants fans Déjà Boo.
Coughlin may not consider himself a lame duck, but no doubt he is fighting for his coaching life, and everyone knows it.
He has two weeks to fix this mess. If 0-2 swells to 0-4 after the Redskins and the Eagles, then it is certain to be open season on Coughlin even before the calendar turns to October.
If Coughlin cannot stop the bleeding, he will be hearing the “Fi-re Cough-lin” chorus towards the end of the 8:15 p.m. Eagles game Sept. 30, and Giants Stadium will be filled with visiting Jets fans the following week, and ownership will see all the empty seats and have no choice but to begin a coaching search.
He is vulnerable because he survived 2006 by the skin of his teeth, and in this climate and in this town, an ugly 0-2 start only invites an hysterical rush to judgment.
Shaun O’Hara was asked if there was enough character in the room to withstand this ghastly start.
“We’ll find out,” he said.
Are you concerned about it?
“I’m not concerned about it,” O’Hara said, “but it doesn’t matter what we say, it matters really what we do.”
In other words, Talk Is Cheap, Play the Game – Coughlin’s training camp message. His message yesterday?
“That we gotta stop hurting ourselves, and we can’t commit penalties and turnovers and expect to win a game,” O’Hara said. “And it’s something that he shouldn’t have to reiterate on a Monday morning ’cause we know that already and we’ve gotta put those words into action.”
His tone?
“He was angry about what happened, but encouraged about the future,” Barry Cofield said. “I think he’s definitely not sugarcoating anything, definitely not gonna act like we weren’t embarrassed yesterday, so I guess it was a pretty serious tone, and a tone that said we need to get it corrected right now.”
When he arrived, Coughlin talked about the restoration of Giants Pride. Did Coughlin mention the word?
“He didn’t necessarily use the word, but the whole message was encouraging and uplifting and have to get it done,” Gibril Wilson said. “We’re all grown men and we’re all very embarrassed, just like you writing a bad story or bad column; next time you’re gonna try your hardest to write the best column that you can. Same thing in our case.”
It’s difficult to write a good column on Big Blue. Michael Strahan is playing as if he missed training camp. Unfortunately, so is virtually everyone else on defense. New system, new coordinator, old players, soft players. Free Mathias Kiwanuka and get him back at defensive end to rush the quarterback, please.
“The players that we have are the players that we have,” Coughlin said.
Coughlin, quite composed yesterday, is trying. He formed that Leadership Council to foster better communication with his players. He took the team bowling in Albany. But Bill Parcells taught us there are no medals for trying.