The Coughlin Files

They started it during training camp. It was tweaked and updated throughout the season. Anecdotes and incidents were added, attitudes were noted, a running account was developed. Themes emerged.

For the NFL writers and columnists in the New York area, Monday was a big day. From the smoky aftermath of the Giants' Wild Card-round loss to the Eagles, their prize possession was able to emerge from the dust -- their FIRE COUGHLIN column.

Oh, there's nothing sweeter than pulling out the heavy ammunition and tossing a few RPG rounds into the crumbling parapit of a coach under fire. These guys live for hunts like these. The chase provides plenty of fun -- all the insulting questions during midweek media sessions, all the innuendo between actual on-field incidents.

But then comes the coup de grace. When they've said a million times that Coughlin's team will be playing for his job, and the team goes out and loses, their moment has arrived. The whites of his eyes are in view.

Obviously, the writers went in a lot of different directions with their FIRE COUGHLIN columns. They sort of have to. For all the groupthink and collective doublespeak produced by a media echo chamber of the New York variety, the job description still involves standing out from the pack and coming up with something resembling a unique voice or fresh take. This, they give their best shot. Not always successfully.

"Coughlin Must Go," Gary Myers, New York Daily News

Hah. The thing with Myers is that there's never anything egregiously wrong with his articles, no obvious howlers like you'd see in a, say, Bill Madden piece. So, the fact that they're perpetually uninspiring and usually a waste of time has to be put down to some combination of bad writing and not knowing what the hell he's talking about.

This one is just about as rote and by-the-numbers as you would have expected. Lost the locker room? Yeah, whatever. Meltdown? Mmm hmm. No progress? No kidding. The conclusion -- "first move should be to fire Coughlin" -- is rather direct.

There is, of course, plenty of bad writing kicking around there. This line really pissed me off -- "Coughlin was in a predictable mood." Well, what precisely is a predictable mood? Was he flipping through the racing forms with his OTB slips out on the locker room floor? Myers goes on to say he was "defensive and a bit ornery," which is all very well and good, but next time, how 'bout having "predictably" modify the appropriate damn adjectives, ok?

"Coughlin Should Be Through With Little Blue," Steve Serby, New York Post

Serby is a better writer than Myers, which makes his epileptic fit in graf four all the more unexpected.

Maybe Coughlin wouldn't have sounded as if he were pleading to keep a job he deserves to lose when he started talking about how proud he was of the "fighters" who lost 23-20 to the Eagles when Little Blue could not stop David Akers from booting the 38-yard field goal as time expired "Absolutely no quit," Coughlin said, as if that is the new gold standard for the football Giants.

Fire him now!!!

Seriously, has anyone seen Steve's medication? Where is the training staff when you need them?

His point about Coughlin teaching Chicken Tika Barber how to hang onto the ball is well-taken. At the same time, he's still metaphor-skipping like he's on one of those "Most Extreme Elimination" challenges, hopping from one rolling wheel to another (the progression goes Hell, Messiah, magic wand, detention center, Nurse Ratchett, Patton, Lombardi ... whew).

He also closes weakly, with another spasmatic question and no real summation. For all the frothing at the mouth, the real Serby fire never shows up.

"Send Coughlin on his way today," Ian O'Connor, Bergen Record

O'Connor used to be at the Journal News up in Westchester. That was a Gannett paper, so he was regularly picked up by USA Today, giving him a rather comical level of national prominance.

Here, he's at his hackish best, coming across as completely creepy in the lede graf and getting Patton way up high, all the way in graf three. Then, he really gets inane.

Soaked by a loser's rain, not by a victor's Gatorade, Coughlin stood in the locker room assigned to the 1-11 Owls of Temple University and sounded like a desperate man campaigning for his job. The Giants had just lost a playoff game to the Eagles on a David Akers field goal in the final seconds, and Coughlin wanted to stay ahead of the story.

He wanted to blitz those trying to ignore the wild and crazy fourth-quarter drive that allowed the Giants to make it a 20-20 game. He wanted to sack anyone trying to turn this postgame routine into his last coaching rites.

So, what the fuck is "a loser's rain?" The East Wind was really using the scoreboard to decide whether or not to roll up? "Well, I'm not sure I like the Jints' third-down conversion percentage, Marv, and those penalties are pretty irritating, so let's send that cold front downtown right away."

I could also do without the phrase "victor's Gatorade." Nobody checks winning percentage before the coolers get put on the sidelines. Arizona and Oakland don't go thirsty just because they've embarassed their families.

Temple, of course, has nothing to do with anything, but it's another way of calling the Giants losers. Get it??? And then there's the Blitz-Sack routine, which is of course very fresh and not at all played out.

"There's More to Consider Than a Tailspin," Dave Anderson, New York Times

Anderson, that old coot, really lets Coughlin have it, going at him with guns ablaz ... what?

The thinking here is that Coughlin deserves to stay as the coach ... When the injury-depleted Giants tumbled into a 1-6 tailspin before salvaging an 8-8 record and a wild card, yes, Coughlin was the coach. But until that streak, Coughlin was the coach of mostly healthy Giants teams that over the 2005 season and half of this season were 17-7, not including a 23-0 loss to Carolina in the playoffs a year ago.

First of all, thanks for reminding us who the coach of the Giants was during that stretch. We were all really straining to remember that little factoid. Second, you've got to love that Anderson uses last year's record to make Coughlin look good, but then feels free to disregard the playoff loss completely. That makes perfect sense in some reality. Just not this one.

But the most frustrating thing about this passage is that Anderson has all the facts laid out right in front of him, and then stands on his head to avoid reaching the obvious conclusion. Let's see -- a coach who can get shut out in the first round of the playoffs when everything goes well and everybody's healthy, but panics and turns into Stalin's understudy when things go bad. That's a bad coach!

Injuries are the norm in the NFL, not the exception. You have to assume injuries, and praise the higher powers when you luck out and nobody important gets hurt. Shit, most schlubs can do decently well when they have their core together for a whole season (see: Mangini, Eric).

The Giants were hit by injuries this year, and Coughlin couldn't handle it. By no means were they the worst-off squad in the NFL -- they didn't lose their franchise quarterback, like some advancing teams we could mention -- and their woes were nothing out of what should be expected in any given season.

If you've got TimesSelect, you can go on to read about why a completely inflexible mind with a chunk on his shoulder and a massive temper deserves to continue to wade through mediocrity. If you're not a subscriber, well, you're not missing much.

"The Sons Will Rise," Shaun Powell, Newsday

The other real pro-Coughlin piece from the locals. Summary: the Giants are too smart to fire Coughlin. Just awful. The coach gets credit for calling Tika a good guy and being loyal to ownership ... the same ownership Powell says will be loyal to him. Quite a little circle-jerk you're approving of there, Shaun.

"Parting Not Sweet Sorrow for the Giants," Rick Carpiniello, Journal News
"Eli Had His Chances," Brian Ettkin, Albany Times Union
"Last Hurrah for Barber, and Maybe Coughlin Too," Michael David Smith, New York Sun
"As the Record Shows, This Team is Only So-So," Jerry Izenberg, Newark Star-Ledger

These four shankers pulled a Bartleby and refused to take a position on Coughlin's future, which really subverts the whole idea of having a column in the first place. For Christ's sake, we know the front office is going to think before they make a decision, and don't want to act rashly. Next thing, you'll be telling us they try to wear clean underwear (every day!) and want to target players in the draft with ability and upside.

You've got a column; I want an opinion. If you're not up for making snap judgements and anointing yourself all-seeing master of the sporting realm, is this really the business for you? When I say I want a blustery, partially informed diatribe, I mean it.

If you're interested, Izenberg's piece is easily the worst of the bunch. I mean, "Clearly, they were what their record said they were?"

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