Tiki Barber: It's time to show Tom Coughlin the door
There are plenty of folks who think the Giants should fire Tom Coughlin. Add one of his former players to that list.
Tiki Barber said in a weekly radio appearance in Los Angeles that the time has come for the Giants to make a change.
"The Giants players are not listening to Tom Coughlin anymore," Barber said Monday. "As much as they want to pass the buck and blame the offensive coordinator, the team got rid of Kevin Gilbride and brought in Ben McAdoo. Now they say it's the defensive coordinator's fault, so maybe it's time to get rid of Perry Fewell. At some point, it trickles uphill and it has to be Tom Coughlin's responsibility. I've held off on saying it, but it is time for them to make a change at head coach."
Tom: Don't blame Eli
While Eli Manning took the heat for his five interceptions against the 49ers on Sunday -- "I think all of them were on me," he said Monday -- his coach was far less critical of the quarterback.
"There's no one individual responsible for that," Coughlin said. "You can see the one guy because he's the one who threw the ball."
Manning's second interception came when the ball slipped out of his hand as he tried to stop from passing it, but Coughlin said the others were a result of the offensive line's inability to protect him.
"There was pressure, sometimes to the point where he wasn't going to be able to function if he didn't release the ball when he did," Coughlin said. "In situations sometimes where you are about to release the ball and you feel like you have to hurry in order to do something with the ball, you make an errant throw and it becomes a turnover."
Asked how Charles Brown, who played most of the game in place of injured Justin Pugh, performed in his first offensive action of the season, Coughlin bluntly said: "Not very well."
Giant steps
The Giants activated G Geoff Schwartz off injured reserve with a designation to return and waived LB Justin Anderson . . . Pugh, who missed most of Sunday's game with a quad strain, said he plans on playing Sunday night against the Cowboys but Coughlin did not have a medical update on the lineman.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
