Instant Analysis: 'Manhandled' Giants in a world of trouble

After watching his New York Giants get dismantled by the Carolina Panthers, 38-0, on Sunday head coach Tom Coughlin said his offense got "manhandled" by the Carolina defense.

"The offense was giving the effort, we were just getting manhandled, quite frankly," Coughlin said.

That's accurate, but is there a stronger word (a clean one)?

The Giants are 0-3 and buried in a hole no NFL team has dug itself out of since the 1998 Buffalo Bills -- the last team to make the playoffs after starting that way.

Will Beatty was terrible, giving up at least one sack and costing the Giants a touchdown with an unnecessary holding penalty. Justin Pugh wasn't very good. David Baas, Chris Snee and Kevin Boothe were overrun in the middle.

Unfortunately, there aren't really any changes the Giants can make in personnel up front. If James Brewer, Brandon Mosley or Jim Cordle were better than what the Giants are trotting out there they would be playing. Veteran David Diehl is out with a thumb injury, and he isn't really an upgrade, anyway.

The Giants had a match-up that seemed to work in their favor Sunday with Carolina fielding a patchwork secondary. They couldn't block well enough to take advantage of it, however.

"We never gave ourselves a chance to go after their chopped up secondary because they did an outstanding jobup fromt," Coughlin said. "I bet the quarterback got hit 20 times."

The Giants expected to be better than this, of course. If there was going to be a blowout sunday pedigree would tell you the Giants would have been on the winning end of it. The Giants, though, look like a bad football team. They have been outscored 115-54.

"We never gave ourselves competitively a chance to be in the game," Coughlin said. "Disappointing is not a strong enough word. "I expected more.

The Giants' offense was the biggest problem. The defense, however, only sacked Cam Newton once and allowed Carolina to run 194 yards. DeAngelo Williams had 23 carries for 120 yards.

Coughlin, of course, would not toss in the towel despite the 0-3 start.

"We're gonna fight every step of the way. We're gonna give it everything we've got," Coughlin said. "We're gonna battle and we're gonna try as hard as we can to be competitive and to turn this thing around."

There are two questions after Sunday's debacle. First, does anyone else care as much as the head coach? Second, even if they do is there enough talent in the Giants locker room to do anything about it?

Both are debatable right now.