NFL

Bad to worse: Giants slaughtered by Panthers

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — There are losses, and then there are totally embarrassing debacles that require an NFL franchise to rethink every single thing it is doing.

Sunday’s 38-0 thrashing at the hands of the previously winless Panthers has to qualify as the latter for the Giants, who stumbled out of Bank of America Stadium dazed, humiliated and staring at an 0-3 start to a season that already looks lost.

“Something’s definitely going to have to happen, because this is intolerable [in] every sense,” Giants safety Antrel Rolle said. “This is just bad all the way around. I don’t have any answers. We have to find our way.”

What was billed as the “Desperation Bowl” between two struggling teams that came in a combined 0-4 played out with only one showing any sense of urgency — and it wasn’t Tom Coughlin’s club.

So much for going all out in honor of their grieving head coach just days after the sudden death of Coughlin’s younger brother. Since improving to 6-2 with a win at Dallas last October, the Giants are 3-8 with two shutout losses.

Big Blue also dropped to 0-3 for the first time since 1996, when the Giants finished 6-10 in Dan Reeves’ last season.

“We never gave ourselves competitively a chance to be in the game,” a stunned Coughlin said. “ ‘Disappointing’ is not a strong enough word. I expected more. We built towards more, but it just was not the competitive game I thought it would be.”

Thanks in large part to an inept offensive line that inexplicably allowed seven sacks and at least 20 more hits on Eli Manning, Big Blue had its doors blown off so completely the final 13 games already look like one long evaluation period for the 2014 NFL Draft.

How bad was it? With 13 minutes left in the third quarter, the Panthers had more points (24) than the Giants had total yards (18).

“I want to sit up here and say that we’re better than the 0-3 team that we are, but the facts are the facts: We’re 0-3, and we’ve got a huge hill to climb,” defensive end Justin Tuck said.

With alleged franchise left tackle Will Beatty the primary culprit, the Giants’ line was completely overrun and allowed a 26th-ranked Carolina defense that began the day with four new starters to tie the franchise record with seven sacks of Eli Manning.

Beatty was called for a holding penalty that nullified a David Wilson touchdown run and looked helpless against the rush of Panthers end Greg Hardy, who had three sacks to go along with three tackles for lost yardage and three more hits on Manning.

With no time to throw and no one open enough to throw it to, Manning suffered though a miserable afternoon. He ended up completing 12-of-19 passes for 119 yards and an interception when he wasn’t being broken in half by the Panthers’ jailbreak pass rush or running for his life.

“Obviously, we’ve dug ourselves into a little bit of a hole,” Manning said. “Words aren’t going to fix anything. It’s about us having great practices and going out there and playing better on game day.”

Carolina and Cam Newton, meanwhile, were simply running wild against a Giants defense that still can’t rush the passer, still can’t cover anybody and still can’t stop the run.

The embattled Newton quieted his critics with a big day, completing 15- of-27 passes for 223 yards and three touchdowns, including a gorgeous, 47-yard scoring strike to Ted Ginn less than two minutes into the fourth quarter that made it 38-0 and had the crowd streaming for the exits.

Led by DeAngelo Williams’ 120 yards, the Panthers also had their way on the ground and finished with 194 rushing yards and two touchdowns overall.

But the Giants’ defensive performance wasn’t nearly as horrifying as the play of their offense, which was shut out for the second time in six games dating to a 34-0 loss at the Falcons in Week 15 last season.

Not only did the Giants give up sacks on three of their first nine snaps, but Manning has to scramble and throw the ball away under pressure on two others plays in that stretch.

The loss ended a remarkable streak in which Coughlin’s teams had started 5-2 every year since he was hired in 2004. His woeful club looks like it will be fortunate to win five games total this season.