PHILADELPHIA — Lawrence Taylor and Harry Carson and Phil Simms must be wearing bags over their heads. These aren’t the Big Bad Giants those proud old warriors are watching these days.
They are the Incredible Shrinking Giants.
The Giants stole a Super Bowl two years ago from Tom Brady with a clutch assassin quarterback and deadly defense.
Right now Eli Manning — two more interceptions yesterday, five in two games — is in the throes of an alarming slump, and the Center for Disease Control might want to investigate whether plantar fasciitis is contagious, because Big Blue sure seems to have caught it from the quarterback.
The quarterback swears his foot has not compromised his game or his team, even as it sure looks otherwise.
The Collapse has taken the Incredible Shrinking Giants from 5-0 to 5-3, and feel free to call them flukes or frauds, because while they can bully the lightweights, they get sand kicked in their faces, they get their lunch money taken from them, they get their glasses stepped on, by the heavyweights.
The Incredible Shrinking Giants were 40-17 losers to the Eagles yesterday at the Linc because:
* Big Blue couldn’t, or wouldn’t, tackle, couldn’t communicate, couldn’t cover, and looked downright soft as the other side of the pillow while Donovan McNabb (17-23, 240 yards, 3 TDs) imposed his will on the afternoon.
Leonard Weaver started the disgrace with a 41-yard TD romp through rookie defensive coordinator Bill Sheridan’s swiss cheese defense and rookie LeSean McCoy capped it with a 66-yard touchdown sprint. Imagine if Brian Westbrook (concussion) had played. In between: a 54-yard bomb to DeSean Jackson against what was supposed to be Cover 2 and was Cover Zero.
“We’re just a bad defense right now,” Antonio Pierce said.
This bad: There was an urgent plea for an immediate shakeup pouring out of the mouths of the Incredible Shrinking Giants.
Pierce: “It’s a complete embarrassment and disappointment. We didn’t tackle ’em, we gave up big plays, we didn’t cover, we’re not communicating. It starts with all 11 guys on the field — basically all 53 guys on this team. The 20 coaches that we have will all have to look at each other in the mirror and we have to make a change because what we’re doing right now is not working. . . . It’s not pointing fingers, it’s not saying this guy, it’s not saying that coach — it’s about everybody just . . . the littlest things right now is just destroying us right now. We went from a team that was very disciplined, playing very good ball, playing very good team concept, to not doing the right things.”
Barry Cofield: “Sometimes it gets to the point you gotta make changes — personnel, calls we make, how we make ’em. . . . We gotta do something differently.”
Mathias Kiwanuka: “The sheer volume of mistakes made out there is unacceptable.”
* Manning (20-39, 222 yards, 1 TD, 2 INTs) is having terrible problems with his accuracy, often throwing high, and making ill-advised decisions.
When it was pointed out to coach Tom Coughlin that his quarterback has been arm-throwing, he said: “That could be. I’ve seen that a couple of times on the practice field. I really can’t say that was something I noticed today.”
Manning said he had no problem pushing off on his right foot in practice last week.
“That’s not an excuse I can fall on,” he said. “It’s not bothering me at all. I just gotta get back to just playing better football, and we can do that.”
His first faux pas was a pass underneath for Travis Beckum that Asante Samuel jumped.
“I’ve just got to see him,” Manning said.
Quintin Demps intercepted a pass down the middle for Sinorice Moss and soon it was 30-7 at intermission.
“It was just kind of a hope shot, and you can’t have those,” Manning said.
A more consistent ground game would help, but Manning is throwing for four yards to Steve Smith on third-and-10, and deep down the sidelines for Smith into double coverage . . . on fourth-and-4. Coughlin, reminding his Incredible Shrinking Giants that he will never wave the white flag, called timeouts with 1:51 left to get the ball back and let Manning throw to the bitter end.
“The month of November, a lot of teams go from champs to chumps, and pretenders to contenders, and we need to make sure that we’re back in that contender race,” Pierce said.
They’re the Incredible Shrinking Giants, until further notice.