2010-2011 New York Giants
The Buccaneers face the New York Giants this coming week, so let’s revisit a story from the book shelf of grandpa Coughlin.
This was the last time Tom Coughlin made the playoffs with the Giants, and also marked one of the most up-and-down seasons he ever had.
In the middle of it all, was a 49-24 loss to the New Orleans Saints. Granted, the Saints were better in that season than the Vikings are expected to be in this one, but let’s not mix words here: the Giants got embarrassed.
Eli Manning actually didn’t do bad in this one. He threw for over 400-yards and two touchdowns in the game. It was the defense though. The same one allowed Drew Brees to fire in four scoring tosses, and gave up well over 150-yards on the ground to the trio of Mark Ingram, Darren Sproles and Pierre Thomas.
Yeah, but this was to a really good Saints team. One which went 13-3 in the regular season in fact. Ok, you have a point imaginary arguer who lives in my home office and taunts me at nine o’clock at night when I’m trying to make a point.
How about this though? The team who won the 2011 Super Bowl. The Tyree led squad who defeated the undefeated and undefeatable New England Patriots with their Tom Brady and Randy Moss touchdown production factory. This same team, lost four straight, and five of their last eight regular season games.
Three of those came against pure contenders themselves, sure. But two of them came against teams which combined for a record of 13-19 in 2011.