Tom Coughlin Tells Giants: 'Look At Yourself In The Mirror'

I cannot recall New York Giants head coach Tom Coughlin ever being as pointed in his criticism of players as he was following the debacle he witnessed Sunday night when the Giants lost to the Philadelphia Eagles, 17-10. In his post-game press conference Coughlin ripped their performance, doubted their discipline and -- most disturbing of all -- seemed to question their desire.

Mike touched on Coughlin's anger in this morning's notebook. I want to expand on some of the things he said. I have a feeling that Giants fans won't disagree with much of what the coach said after watching the Giants play pitifully in surrendering the lead in the NFC East.

"We have no first downs to show, we have no yardage to show, we have no rushing yardage with 29 yards, which is about as pathetic as it can get. It was a very poor performance," Coughlin said.

Check. Pathetic running game. An offensive line that was a sieve. Five dropped passes by receivers. A defense that could not stop the less-than-stellar Vince Young.

You saw all of those things. Coughlin saw them too, and he also saw a team that he felt did not play hard enough, or with enough discipline. The veteran coach savaged his team after the game.

"As I just said to each one of the players, first start off with yourself and look at yourself in the mirror. Ask yourself. Because my question for them was ‘why?' What does it take to understand what the Eagles were going to be like coming here? You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that the team is 3-6 with their backs to the wall, they are going to play their butts off. To get to where we wanted to go, we had to play better and harder and we didn't," Coughlin said.

"I am very disappointed because coming out of San Francisco the talk was -- by the players -- we will fight, we will fight, we will play hard and we will do all those things. I didn't see that. I saw the penalties. I saw the skirmishes, the things that become a thing of discipline and the things that take away your focus from the game. That may have had an effect on us in the early going. Instead of the team rallying around when the quarterback got hit with a personal foul when the guy drove the quarterback in the back, you would think your team would rally but we didn't do that. We had someone come forward and try to retaliate but that did nothing more than take our 15-yard penalty away. I would have expected to rally but I didn't see that either."

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