If this is the shameful way these Giants decide to play football down the stretch, if yesterday was a reflection of how much they care, then they do not deserve to be in the playoffs.
If this is the clueless, heartless, uninspired product the Giants give their 12th Man, if the 11 men on the field with their season on the line make the Redskins resemble the best of the Joe Gibbs Era, then Santa should feel compelled to slide down Tom Coughlin’s chimney with a pink slip should Rex Ryan and the Jets embarrass them on Christmas Eve and the Cowboys finish them on New Year’s Day, if they’re not finished already by then.
If the Giants are lucky, the Jets team that spit the bit yesterday in Philadelphia will show up to host them.
PHOTOS: REDSKINS BEAT GIANTS, 23-10
If the Jets are lucky, the Giants team that again disgraced the uniform will show up at MetLifeandDeath Stadium.
So now The Battle For New York becomes a battle for both seasons.
“It’s huge, obviously. … We still want to accomplish our goal, which is winning a Super Bowl, and now we have to win this game to get there,” Mathias Kiwanuka said.
Slay bells ring, are you listening Tom Coughlin?
Gone away is the bluebird. . .here to stay is the boobird. . .walking in a winter blunderland.
“The Jets-Giants rivalry as far as who owns New York or whatever it may be?” Justin Tuck said. “ It’s gonna be a lot of emotions flying in that football game, and as hard as it is for me to put this game behind us ’cause I know we just let another one slip away, that’s exactly what we gotta do.”
With so much to play for, the Giants again left their infuriated fans with so much to pray for.
“We didn’t play hard,” Brandon Jacobs said, “and they wanted it more.”
If you didn’t know better, you would have thought the Giants looked past the Redskins and ahead to the Jets.
Of course, later on, you might have thought the Jets looked past the Eagles and ahead to the Giants.
The Giants’ 23-10 loss to the Redskins was unacceptable, unconscionable, unbecoming of any and all Giants teams and, with apologies to Tim Tebow, ungodly.
“If you don’t got it in the heart. . .I don’t know,” Antrel Rolle said.
If the Cowboys beat the Eagles and the Giants lose to the Jets, it’s over.
If the Giants don’t beat the Jets and Cowboys, it’s over.
If the Cowboys beat the Eagles and the schizophrenic Giants rise up to beat the Jets and then lose to the Cowboys, same deal.
“Sometimes we go out there and we have a sense of urgency and we come to play football, sometimes we go out there and just take the field,” Rolle said.
Frauds do that.
“We just didn’t have enough fight throughout the entire game,” Rolle said.
Inexcusable.
Coughlin’s Giants still haven’t proven they know how to finish.
But they sure have mastered the art of the second-half collapse.
“The responsibility always comes right back to me, and I accept it,” Coughlin said.
Even Eli Manning (three interceptions) caught whatever disease has spread through the rest of the team, so much so he was outplayed by Rex Grossman (only two INTs), thanks in part to a pair of touchdown drops by Hakeem Nicks.
“They had a good plan defensively. . .some things that we were expecting, we didn’t get,” Manning said.
In other words: outplayed and outcoached.
But on a day when the wind was a factor and the sun-blinded Nicks on what should have been a 54-yard TD catch, there was no commitment to the running game, even if the Redskins were able to play 35 minutes of keepaway.
It was 17-3 for the Redskins at the half when Manning — 0-for-6 in the first quarter — had an underthrow for Nicks intercepted by DeAngelo Hall, and soon it was 20-3, and over.
“I’d boo too if I paid for a seat in the stadium,” Dave Tollefson said.
“If you’re injured, so be it, you’re injured, we understand that,” Rolle said. “But nicks and bruises? Everyone needs to be on the [practice] field, man because we’re not getting better like this.”
That’s called grasping at straws. What does that have to do with whiffing on a third-and-17 tackle?
What’s next? The Jets falling prey to a Fake Spike? Manning pulling a Pisarcik?
“You tell me an accountant is wanting to lose money, or you say to me a doctor wanted to lose a patient? … Pardon my French, but s–t happens,” Tuck said.
Bring on the Jets!
The Kotite Jets.