Maybe everyone has this all wrong. Maybe Tom Coughlin and the Giants have it just right with the 0-3 start to their season.
After all, how they start rarely has much to do with how they finish. After all, the Giants always have been a streaky team under Coughlin, a fascinating blend of great and awful mixed into the same season, often world-beaters in autumn and dead-beaters in winter. After all, they always start fast in the regular season and almost always finish slow, and they have not made it into the playoffs in four of Coughlin’s nine years, so perhaps a new recipe will spice up the same old meal.
After all, what else can the Giants grasp onto?
“We always talk about starting fast and getting the season off on the right foot,’’ Eli Manning said. “Obviously, to start 0-3 is a first. I guess there have been times we’ve lost three games in a row. … If it’s going to happen, maybe you [would] rather do it early on so you have time to fix it and time to turn things around. But we got to do it, it’s not going to happen by words.’’
Manning and the Giants have endured three four-game losing streaks and one eight-game losing streak under Coughlin’s watch, but this is the first time they have been 0-3 right out of the chute, which always makes the situation appear more hopeless.
Before this year, Coughlin’s teams with the Giants always were early dynamos, compiling a record of 57-15 (.792 winning percentage) if you add up their best starts each season. The fall always is significant and often crippling, as Coughlin’s Giants after the high point in each season are 26-46, a lackluster winning rate of just 36 percent.
Heck, the year the Giants won their most recent Super Bowl, they suffered through a no-win November, which is virtually unheard of.
“We are falling behind,’’ linebacker Mark Herzlich said. “We dug ourselves a nice little hole, but it’s not too late. If this is our little bad streak and then we’re solid through the rest of the season, October and November, I mean, November has been our slump.
We get that out of the way now and play hard and physical and don’t let down, then we can still have a good, productive playoff season. We have made it harder for ourselves, definitely, so we need to be sharp and we need to be perfect.’’
They don’t need to be perfect, but they do need to be vastly improved. It is child’s play to pick apart what’s gone wrong, to hang all the negative statistics up on the vine and watch them rot. This is not a terrible team, and not every aspect of its performance has been terrible — the 38-0 trouncing in Carolina notwithstanding. Here are a few areas the Giants need to address immediately:
— As soon as David Diehl is healthy, insert him at left guard and move Kevin Boothe to center. David Baas is battling injuries and is not effective.
— Force-feed rookie Damontre Moore onto the field and tell him to go get the quarterback. The defensive ends are not providing any pressure and new blood is needed. Also move Cullen Jenkins outside to end to shake things up.
— Rattle the cage of the offensive playbook and use three-step drops to quicken the pace and ease the load on the offensive line.
— Get David Wilson in space. Coughlin and Kevin Gilbride need to figure out a way to utilize Wilson’s great speed and stop trying to make him into something he’s not.
— Wake up Keith Rivers. There isn’t a complete linebacker on the roster, but Rivers is the closest there is. Put him on the weak side and let him chase the ball.