KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Giants are one of those teams that finds ways to lose, and they have been reduced to shell-shocked, clueless pretenders who have to know now they will not be the first team to host a Super Bowl in its own backyard, because that dream lies buried at Arrowhead Stadium.
GM Jerry Reese stood alone in the locker room, politely declining an interview request. This isn’t any countdown to Super Bowl XLVIII anymore, it is a countdown to fracturing and finger-pointing and turmoil that ultimately claims bad football teams that believed they were good. A little after 5 p.m., Tom Coughlin, wearing a mask of pain and disbelief, trudged head down out of the locker room, toward the bus. Toward another Blue Monday.
His team had managed to summon some pride this time, and some fight, but pride and fight alone are hardly enough in this league, and there will be no Canyon of Heroes parade awaiting these 0-4 Giants, 31-7 losers to the Chiefs, an improvement only on Panthers 38, Giants 0.
Steve Weatherford, appropriately dressed in black from head to toe, said: “It’s not a funeral for us. … We’re not dead.”
Not dead yet, because of the sorry state of the NFC East. But dying.
And Eli Manning cannot save them.
“Right now,” Justin Tuck said, “we’re low as you can get. … We’re going to find a way to right this ship. Or we’re going to die trying.”
The Manning Giants — no reliable running threat, no nail-chewing offensive linemen, no weapon aside from Victor Cruz — look lost, discombobulated, dysfunctional. Look like the Dave Brown Giants.
Other than Manning-to-Cruz, the Giants’ best offensive play was the old third-and-long, give-up draw.
Manning looked more comfortable in that rap video with his brother than he does these dog days as quarterback. Something is missing and no one can find it.
They aren’t Road Warriors anymore.
They are Road Kill.
The suspects include: playcalling, blocking, confidence, the disappearance of Jason Pierre-Paul and the pass rush, and champs playing like chumps.
And it was Manning and the 10 men in the huddle with him who were responsible enough that you would be right on referring to the Giants as No ‘O’-and-4. Or a Wing And A Prayer.
The game was there to be taken, and Manning could not take it.
“We get no drives going,” Manning said. “We have to search and find a way to play better.”
Manning, 1-for-14 on third down, was asked if this was as puzzled as he has been in a while.
“Yeah,” he said. “Feel like we have good preparation and I thought guys competed today, we’re just aren’t making many plays. We have playmakers, we’re not playing well. … I feel like we can play well.”
His one dynamic moment came on a 69-yard touchdown strike to Cruz against Dunta Robinson that made it Chiefs 7, Giants 7. He targeted Cruz (10 rec., 164 yards) 16 times. Hakeem Nicks (3 rec., 33 yards) had nine targets and no impact whatsoever. The tight end (2 targets) was no factor.
“We’re used to making big plays and moving the ball and getting going offensively, and it’s just not happening for us,” Cruz said, “and we just got to figure out what it is.”
Cruz, much to Coughlin’s chagrin, wanted to go for fourth-and-a half yard at the Giants’ 30 late in the third quarter of a 10-7 game after Andy Reid had successfully challenged his 17-yard first down catch that ultimately became a 16-yard catch. Punting was the proper call, even if Dexter McCluster’s ensuing 89-yard punt return iced it.
“Coming into the season, if you told me I was 0-4, I wouldn’t have believed you,” Cruz said.
Manning’s no-huddle worked at the end of the first half — getting the Giants in position for a 44-yard field-goal attempt the Josh Brown missed — and needs to be implemented more often.
Twice the defense came up with interceptions, and twice Manning did nothing with them.
“He put the ball exactly where he’s supposed to put it a few times today … nine times out of 10 I come down with it, today I didn’t,” Nicks said. “Just got to zoom in on the ball a little bit better, that’s all.”
No ‘O’-and-4.
“The coach said once we’re fed up with how we’re playing, we’ll do something about it,” Tuck said. “Obviously we’re not fed up yet.”
And because they’re not, R.I.P. Super Bowl dream.