Jeremy stirs Seattle stew
Shockey, Hawks hit Giants hard
BY RALPH VACCHIANO
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
Jeremy Shockey and Eli Manning (below) express their frustration yesterday.
Seahawks pick up second score in first quarter as Nate Burleson catches pass for touchdown.
SEATTLE - Ten months ago, the Giants flew home from Qwest Field feeling they were as good as any team in the NFC.
Last night, they flew home feeling embarrassed and angry after a lopsided loss that left volatile tight end Jeremy Shockey saying the Giants "got outplayed and out-coached."
"Write that one down," Shockey said after the Giants lost to the Seahawks, 42-30. "There's no 12th man, there's no --- excuses. That's basically it."
Shockey wasn't alone in his anger and frustration, either. In his press conference, Tom Coughlin was as mad as he's ever been as he ripped into his team. And linebacker Antonio Pierce took the beating so hard that he insisted the Giants are "a horrible team" that can't be considered a legitimate contender.
And if that seems harsh for a team that lost to the defending NFC champions by only 12 points, that's because it took a wild 27-point fourth quarter to make the score even look close.
More telling was the fact that the quarter began with the Giants trailing 42-3.
The fact that it took that long for the Giants' offense to get in gear clearly irked Shockey, who wanted so badly to make his point about the coaches that he jumped in when reporters were interviewing left tackle Luke Petitgout two lockers away. His ears first perked up when he heard that Coughlin had said, "We lost our composure again up front," because of three false start penalties in the first quarter.
That drew a chuckle from Shockey. Within a minute the interview belonged to him.
"They were in defenses that we didn't know they were going to be in," Shockey said. "They did different things that we hadn't seen. You can make adjustments all you want, but when they switch things up we can't do anything. The coaches' jobs are supposed to be to put us in the best situations to succeed."
More specifically, Shockey seemed to be upset that the Giants didn't begin to use their no-huddle offense until 3:18 remained in the third quarter, when they were trailing by 39 points. Though he conceded, "You can't play the whole game in a no-huddle situation, unfortunately," he also said, "When Eli (Manning) is just calling plays, I think we play better football."
When should they have gone to the no-huddle?
"I'm not a head coach," said Shockey, who had just four catches for 58 yards. "I go out there and try to play as hard as I can in the best situation. Personally, myself, I want to help this team win as much as possible and it's hard and frustrating when I'm in half the time blocking. But what can you do?"
As mad as Shockey seemed at the coaches, that's how mad Coughlin seemed at his players after a game in which the Giants faced the largest halftime deficit (35-3) in their entire 82-year history. Coughlin, who addressed the media before Shockey's eruption, seemed furious with almost everything, though it was the four first-half turnovers - all of which led to Seattle touchdowns - that bothered him the most.
"The first half, we just gave the game away - handed it to them," Coughlin said. "A team that does nothing but preach about turnovers, we turned it over like it was nothing. It cost us the game."
Coughlin also flagged his offensive line for those three false starts (down from 11 a year ago), his team for eight penalties (down from 16) and a pass defense that "was practically nonexistent." That defense allowed Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck to rally after throwing an interception on the game's first play, to complete 24 of 33 passes for 227 yards and a club-record five touchdowns.
It was after he threw his last one - a 12-yard strike to Darrell Jackson in the third quarter - that the Giants seemed to finally show up. With Plaxico Burress benched after a second-quarter fumble, the Giants used the no-huddle to get a quick touchdown pass from Manning (24-for-36, 275 yards, three touchdowns, three interceptions) to Amani Toomer early in the fourth quarter.
But that touchdown and the entire comeback was meaningless. "Those were gimmies," Petitgout said. So was the 25-yard touchdown pass to Tim Carter after a Fred Robbins interception, the R.W. McQuarters 27-yard interception return for a touchdown one play later, and the 9-yard touchdown pass to David Tyree that pulled the Giants within 12 with 2:42 remaining.
The comeback would have been a nice story on the heels of the Giants' 17-point rally in Philadelphia the previous Sunday, "But it didn't mean anything because we were 40 points in the hole," Toomer said.
"Right now we're a horrible team," Pierce added. "When you talk about teams that are contenders, they don't beat themselves. Right now we're beating ourselves."
"It's embarrassing," said Tiki Barber. "That's the easiest word."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Man- Two whamo weeks for the gnats... The rooler coaster is now boarding in NYC!
Comment