Missing Playoffs Would Allow Giants To Rebuild

As badly as they played Sunday night against the Washington Redskins, the Giants will still, in all likelihood, make the playoffs. Big Blue can clinch a playoff berth with a win in either of the final two games — against the Buffalo Bills and New England Patriots — or with two losses from the Minnesota Vikings, or one loss each from the New Orleans Saints and Washington Redskins. Even if the Giants don't win another game, it's likely that those teams will lose and allow the Giants to back into the playoffs.

For Giants fans, that wouldn't necessarily be great news.

The truth is, the Giants aren't going anywhere if they do make the playoffs — they're simply not good enough to beat a division-winning team on the road in the postseason in January. Making the playoffs for the third straight year might still be just enough for the team's front office to convince itself that the franchise is heading in the right direction.

That would be a mistake. Taking that attitude would allow the franchise to make only moderate changes to the roster this off-season and to continue pretending that everything is fine with coach Tom Coughlin and quarterback Eli Manning. In reality, this team needs to be rebuilt.

Before the Giants can relive their Super Bowl-winning 1986 and 1990 seasons, they need to relive 1983, when they hit rock bottom and finished with a 3–12–1 record in Bill Parcells's first season as head coach. That bad season gave Parcells a mandate to break the team down and build it back up. Parcells sent unproductive veterans packing and replaced them with players who would buy into his system. The result was that, in Parcells's next seven seasons as the Giants' coach, they made the playoffs five times and won two Super Bowls.

The good news is that rock bottom doesn't have to be a three-win season. It could be a season that goes from 6–2 at the halfway point to an end to play before New Year's Day. If the Giants miss the playoffs, that will probably be sufficient for the front office to get rid of Coughlin and let the rebuilding process begin.

There's no guarantee that if the Giants fired Coughlin they'd find a coach who could reshape the team the way Parcells did, but it's crystal clear now that Coughlin is never going to get the team to take the next step. Coughlin hasn't been an abject failure as the Giants' head coach — he does have a winning record, 34–30 — but players begin to tire of his hard-charging ways around the midway point of every season. The Giants need a coach who can motivate the players without alienating them.

The second tough decision will be choosing another quarterback to acquire in the off-season. The Giants don't necessarily need to cut Manning, but they do need someone on the roster who could be a credible replacement for Manning. This season, Manning has had games in which he has played badly enough that he deserved to be benched, but the Giants' backups — Anthony Wright and Jared Lorenzen — haven't been good enough for the coaches to have any confidence that they could improve the odds by benching him. The Giants either need to draft a quarterback next year or bring in a free agent who can compete with Manning for the starting job.

Completely severing ties with Manning is unlikely, but the option should be on the table, especially if the Giants have a new coach next season. There are salary cap ramifications to cutting Manning, who has received substantial bonus money that would count against the Giants' 2008 cap if Manning were released after this season. But those ramifications are not so great that releasing Manning is out of the question. The Giants are much more likely to make an honest evaluation in 2008 of whether Manning is the right quarterback for the team if they're coming off a non-playoff season.

Missing the playoffs would also make the Giants much more likely to honestly evaluate whether Manning — or some other quarterback — has enough talent around him on the field. Although wide receiver Plaxico Burress has been the Giants' best player this year, he will be 31 at the start of next season. Fellow receiver Amani Toomer will be 34 and tight end Jeremy Shockey will be 28 and possibly not back at full speed after the season-ending leg injury he suffered Sunday night. For all the production those three have given the Giants — and even though the Giants have spent two straight second-round picks on wide receivers, Sinorice Moss and Steve Smith — there still aren't enough playmakers in the passing game.

There aren't enough playmakers anywhere on the field, and there won't be until something shakes up the Giants' front office and forces the team to make radical changes. That's why a Giant collapse that ended with the team missing the playoffs wouldn't be a complete disappointment. It might, in fact, be a step in the right direction.

Mr. Smith is a writer for FootballOutsiders.com.