Fire Tom Coughlin!

The players don’t care…the coaches are inept and not respected by the team and the fans are just plain pissed off at how this New York Giants season has gone after the team started off with a 6-2 record in the first half of the season. Since then, the team has hit rock bottom – more than once – losing six out of the last seven games. While the 6th and final NFC Wild Card position is still a possibility, I think it’s clear that the Giants players have given up on their coaching staff, including Tom Coughlin.

There were a few times during yesterday’s 30-7 drubbing against the New Orleans Saints that I thought it was the final nail in the coffin of Tom Coughlin’s 3-year tenure as New York Giants head coach. …and I’m not even talking about the two times during the second half of the game when the Meadowlands faithful chanted Fire Coughlin.

Midway through the 3rd quarter with the game still within reach of the Giants, Tiki Barber ran for 7 yards on a 1st and 10. On the next play, the Giants coaching staff called for a passing play despite Barber’s previous big yardage gain and Barber immediately expressed his frustration with the coaching staff’s playing calling by raising his arms in disgust – first in the huddle and then again toward the sidelines. Needless to say that the next play was an incomplete pass by a suddenly inept Eli Manning. That one play by Barber says more about how the Giants players feel about the coaching staff then anything else during their ill fated season.

It’s one thing to for Barber to talk to the coaches about play calling decisions during the film session after the game, it’s another thing for Barber to be upset after the game and say that the other team outcoached the Giants. And it’s completely another thing for him to show up the coaches on national TV on one minor play. What it says to me is that our team leader doesn’t agree at all with the play calling and decision making of the coaches. And when that happens, well you have a problem as your team leaders aren’t going to execute on plays that they don’t agree with.

Everyone says that Coughlin is a tough, hard knocks coach to play for and for some reason this has to translate into the players being disciplined and not make stupid mental errors. Well, this sure doesn’t translate for backup offensive lineman Bob Whitfield who has been called for personal foul penalties on multiple head butts this year. And what does Coughlin do after Whitfield gets whistled for two personal foul penalties in the game. Does he bench him? Does he scream at him? Does he get in his face? No, he doesn’t. All Coughlin does is walk right by Whitfield when he comes off the field. That says to me that the coach either doesn’t care or that he knows that his players don't respect what he has to say.

And that’s why Tom Coughlin needs to be fired.