Giants' defense letting season slip through its fingers

PHILADELPHIA -- For as long as I can remember, the backbone of the New York Giants has been their defense. It crushed opponents. It protected victories. It made Hall of Famers of its players and head coaches of its assistants.

But that backbone is in serious, serious need of realignment.

The Giants D is more like an F, with guys who can't cover, can't tackle, can't communicate and can't keep anyone out of the end zone. In short, it stinks and is in such a funk that its stars are beginning to use adjectives like "embarrassing" and "disappointing" to describe their play.

"I've got a lot of concerns," said linebacker Antonio Pierce. "We're not doing anything well on defense. We went from a team that was very disciplined, playing very good ball, to not doing the right things.

"It goes with the coaches. It goes with the players. It goes with the individuals. Every one of us has to be accountable. We have to do our jobs. Right now we're not, and it's obvious."

That's a big 10-4. Over the past three weeks the Giants twice have been punctured for 40 or more points, including Sunday's 40-17 hammering by the Philadelphia Eagles. Worse, they haven't won since Oct. 11.

So they're only a half-game out of first place in the NFC East, but that's small solace for an outfit that three weeks ago was considered the best in the league. Now it's not even the best team in its division. In fact, it's not one of the top two.

"You can look at all the stats you want," said losing coach Tom Coughlin, "but that's not the story of the game. The story of the game is the fundamentals. It's tackling. That's not the football we teach, and that's not what we're all about. But there it was again. We definitely put ourselves into whatever funk or however you want to describe this.

"We were 5-0 and playing well. Now, all of a sudden, we're 5-3 and we're not doing very much of anything well."

The question is: Why? What happened that turned the G-Men into the Wee-Men, crushed by New Orleans and the Eagles? Their early games didn't feature heavyweight contenders, but the Giants fought back to beat Dallas in the regular-season debut of the Cowboys' new stadium. And while you can laugh about a schedule that included stiffs like Tampa Bay, Kansas City and Oakland, the Raiders -- as Coughlin pointed out to a reporter -- did OK against Philadelphia.

Unfortunately, the Giants did not. And when you share the same division, that's a problem

"It's just disappointing," said Pierce. "I couldn't think in my wildest dreams that we'd be on a three-game losing streak, but we are."

From the beginning Sunday the Giants were in trouble. It took the Eagles three plays to cover 60 yards on their opening series, with fullback Leonard Weaver -- hired away from Seattle for his blocking -- going the final 41 yards on a blast up the middle, and the rout was on. Donovan McNabb, who couldn't solve the Raiders, threw for three first-half touchdowns, including a 54-yarder to DeSean Jackson where the Eagles' playmaker was left all alone. LeSean McCoy, subbing for the injured Brian Westbrook, broke a third-and-1 carry off left tackle for 66 yards and another score.

"I don't understand that myself," Coughlin said of McCoy's score.

Yeah? There's a lot lately that is hard to explain. Over the past three games the Giants have been ripped for 112 points, 1,172 yards, 15 touchdowns and three miserable losses. They aren't just off. They're abysmal, and use any adjective you'd like -- embarrassing, humiliating, disgraceful -- they're all getting kicked around as the Giants try to find themselves before it's too late.

Donovan McNabb and the Eagles are a step ahead of the Giants defense all game. (AP)

"We've had stretches [like this] before, since I've been here," said defensive end Justin Tuck, "but this ain't us. We've got to get back to being on the same page and start playing Giants football like we can."

That's certainly the mantra inside their locker room. But can they? They were good against bad teams and bad against good teams, so tell me where that leaves them. In their most recent loss, scoring was way too easy for Philadelphia and tackling way too difficult for the Giants. The Eagles scored on six of their first seven possessions -- touchdowns on four of them -- and, I'm sorry, that is not Giants football.

But it has been Giants football for three games, and that is not an aberration. It's a concern.

"I don't think there was one point in the [Eagles] game where we stood up and said, 'Enough is enough,'" said defensive end Matthias Kiwanuka. "We were still making mistakes and weren't executing our defense or our offense. And we have to get that fixed."

Critics will point to Eli Manning's three-week slump and blame the Giants' swoon on him. But c'mon. Eli has hit speed bumps before, and the Giants' defense was there to pull him through. Now it's not, and that should have everyone at Giants headquarters alarmed. I mean, the last time the club endured a three-game losing streak under Coughlin was 2006, when Coughlin's job security was the subject of conversation.

Now it's not. Now it's his shrinking defense.

"I'm not at my wit's end," said Coughlin. "I'm just as frustrated as the next guy and I know how we fought ourselves out of this situation in the past. But we're at the mid-point, and there are things that we have to correct that are things you would have hoped you would play yourself into doing better than what we are. Like basic tackling. You don't miss tackles in the open field."

The Giants are. No part of this game was more symptomatic of what's wrong with Big Blue than the end of the first half when, after closing to 16-7, the Giants allowed two touchdowns after the two-minute warning. Actually, they surrendered two in little over a minute, with the first a one-play drive and the second the result of a Manning interception. In any case, good defenses don't crumble like that, and the Giants are not a good defense. Not now they're not.

"Something is not clicking the way it should," said Tuck. "So we all need to look at ourselves in the mirror and get this ship righted."

I know the Giants are missing some key players. Safety Kenny Phillips is out for the season. Defensive lineman Chris Canty didn't suit up. Linebacker Michael Boley and cornerback Aaron Ross didn't, either. But that's no excuse. Good teams find ways of overcoming their losses.

So far, the Giants have not.

I also know Philadelphia has weapons and is solid on both sides of the ball. But the Giants had beaten them here the past four times in the regular season. Plus, they're just not as bad -- or, at least, they shouldn't be -- as they are now. Manning is off. The special teams can't make big plays. And the defense is absolutely dreadful. Put them together, and you have a team -- and a defense -- in crisis.

"We're going to take our lashing like men, and we should," said Tuck. "We've been through stretches where we're not clicking, but normally that happens early in the season. We're good football players, and had bad stretches here and there and turned it around. But we need to be adamant about it. We're going to do everything in our power to start anew."

Good idea.