Coughlin, Giants: It was just one loss!

It's early in the second half of the season. The Giants lost. This must be the beginning of the end, right?

Maybe. There certainly is a minefield of quality teams for the Giants to get through in search of their first playoff appearance in three years. And their track record for tailing off late in seasons is well-documented. But Tom Coughlin cautioned about reading too much into the loss to the 49ers and how it will set a tone for the remainder of the schedule.

"You have to take each year one at a time, you have to take each game one at a time," Coughlin said. "I don't feel that we should ever give up 27 and I certainly am not satisfied with 20 points. But as far as analyzing why and what, we didn't play well enough to win. That's it. Does it have anything to do with the second half? No. It has to do with the ninth game of the year."

Coughlin preceded his statement with this aside: "I can't imagine why this question keeps coming up."

Here's why: In their seven-plus seasons under Coughlin, the Giants are an impressive 47-17 in the first half of the season, but with Sunday's loss, they are 24-33 in the second half. They have made the playoffs only once since winning the Super Bowl in February 2008, and the only year they ever won a postseason game under Coughlin was during that title march.

So yeah, there are a lot of folks who believe that the loss to the 49ers was just a tremor foretelling another second-half swoon. Not the Giants, though.

"That's what a lot of people say about us," safety Kenny Phillips said. "We haven't thought about it in our locker room. We feel like this is a totally different team. We're at a totally different place mentally than we were a year ago. I think we're more mature."

"We've all learned from the past," guard David Diehl said. "You have to take care of your own business. You can't rely on other guys and other teams to help you out. The only way to take care of business is one game at a time. This was a tough loss against a good football team, but I know we're going to bounce back from it."

The Giants did lose Sunday, but they played well against a quality opponent nearly 3,000 miles from home. What did them in was a three-minute span in the second half that featured breakdowns on offense, defense and special teams.

A three-and-out, a poor punt, a questionable offside penalty, a botched coverage, an interception and a missed run in a span of 3:02 allowed the 49ers to score 15 of their 27 points -- and their only two touchdowns -- during one thunderclap of errors. Eliminate any of those mistakes and perhaps the Giants are 7-2 instead of 6-3 and the word "collapse" doesn't even come up this week.

It will. Again. Even though the Giants were at least .500 during the second half in three of their previous four seasons. And even though, as guard Chris Snee pointed out: "We did win the Super Bowl. I think that's finishing strong."

The Giants were 4-4 in the second half last season. But they also were seven minutes away from winning the division with a three-touchdown lead.

"I think there's good unity in this team and I think they believe in each other and I think they enjoy being around each other and working with one another," Coughlin said. "I'm not comparing them to any other team that we've had. I'm just talking about this team."

Deep down, the Giants know those comparisons will continue whether they like it or not. And really, there is only one way to stop them.