The New York Daily News’ Gary Myers has the pleasure of chatting with an anonymous member of Big Blue while trashing the “desperation phase” of Tom Coughlin’s tenure.
Coughlin finally fired offensive coordinator John Hufnagel as his playcaller yesterday, but it’s much too late in the season for the move to have an impact. And instead of Coughlin handing the job to quarterbacks coach Kevin Gilbride, the other part of the tandem that has done such a wonderful job with Eli Manning, he should have taken control of the Titanic and called the plays himself Saturday night in Washington.
At this point, why trust anyone else when it’s your job on the line?
I asked one Giant in the days after Sunday’s debacle against the Saints how the players feel these days about Coughlin – did they want him back, and what has gone wrong?
“We are tiring of his act,” the Giant said. “He is pushing too hard. We’re still in full pads for part of practice, despite all the injuries we have and the fact that it’s the end of a long season. He is very ‘me’ oriented, always talks about doing things his way – his hard-ass, no-give approach – but we’re not winning or sustaining games, so the disconnect is widening and we are tuning him out.”
It’s a shame Jeff Feagles isn’t willing to step up and take credit for such an astute observation.
NY SportsDog claims “the latest rumour that appears to have traction is that Giants will go hard for both Patriots head coach Bill Belichick to replace Coughlin and Patriots V.P./player personnel Scott Pioli to replace outgoing GM Ernie Accorsi,” a curious assertion given that Steve Serby already recommended the Giants pursue Pioli (along with the Hooded Casanova’s former colleague, Charlie Weis). Given Bob Kraft’s history of losing coaches to the Swamp, I have a hard time imagining the Casanova and Pioli escaping Foxboro, contracts or not.
The Giants remind me of the middling, dysfunctional late-Piazza Mets teams of a couple of seasons ago. Sniping, mouthy vets like Strahan and Barber stand in pretty nicely for Leiter and Piazza, although Coughlin — due to his emotiveness, if also his shortages of charm and people skills — doesn’t match up so well with Art Howe. Still, I’d think a rebound next season — whoever’s coaching, without Tiki and whoever else — is pretty likely. The Coughlin Cure is obviously hurting more than it’s helping, but there are still some really good players on that team. For example, Calexico Burress is pretty decent every ten plays. If he’s getting the ball.
did Myers say Coughlin threw Hufnagel under the bus? Myers uses the phrase under the bus about every fourth sentence.