by Steve Serby , The New York Post

"One team . . . one chance." That was the slogan the 2009 Giants adopted in the summer.

One-game season today against the Chargers.

It is time to send out the clowns, and send in the New York Football Giants .

Bozo never wore a Super Bowl ring.

It is time to make a stand.

Here's why they will save their season and beat the Chargers: They're mad as hell and they're not gonna take it anymore.

"Angry at ourselves, angry at media, angry at people that kinda already written us off and it's only eight games in the season," Justin Tuck said. "So, we'll find out what we're really made about this week."

They have the better head coach. Tom Coughlin has been there, done that, won a Super Bowl. He knows how to steer the Good Ship MaraTisch into calmer waters. Let others panic. Not him. Not them.

And they have their 12th Man. "Be loud, man, we need 'em loud," Dave Tollefson said.

This must be a madhouse for the West Coast intruders, defended by a mad team.

It is time for Eli Manning, the quarterback Ernie Accorsi wanted, to remind us that he is better for this franchise than Philip Rivers, the quarterback A.J. Smith and the Chargers wanted, might have been. It is time for Manning to stop throwing interceptions and stop making uncharacteristic bonehead decisions and start stepping into his throws and being the battlefield commander his team needs him to be right now, come hell or plantar fasciitis.

It is time for Brandon Jacobs and the offensive line to bully someone, from start to finish.As in run the ball down their throats.

It is time for Osi Umenyiora, Justin Tuck and Mathias Kiwanuka to get after Rivers the way they got after Tom Brady in Super Bowl XLII, especially with Alphonse and Gaston trying to cover trees named Vincent Jackson, Malcom Floyd and Antonio Gates.

It is time for Big Blue to defend Giants Stadium with a Carsonian f e r o c i t y and a Tayloresque fury, and dictate to Rivers and LaDainian Tomlinson and Darren Sproles instead of the other way around.

Madhouse. Mad team.

Rock bottom arrived Monday in the meeting room inside the Timex Underperformance Center, watching the tape of Eagles 40, Giants 17.

"It was as tough as it's ever been on a Monday around here," Kiwanuka said.

If the Giants could, they would meet the Chargers by the team bus and play the game in the parking lot. Asked to describe the level of urgency, Tuck said: "One-through-10, I think it's 11. Guys are really looking forward to this game. . . . Guys have been kinda itching to get back on the Football field."

Shame on the 5-3 Giants for losing three straight games. Shame on them if they let themselves and their town down. Shame on them if they don't show a champion's heart.

They will not be handing out the Lombardi Trophy today. But if the Giants cannot rise up at the end of a week in which they have summoned every ounce of their professional pride, then they will be forced to hold this truth as self-evident as they slink off into bye week hell:

They aren't good enough.

They aren't tough enough.

They are not who they thought they were.

The Giants would not be mathematically eliminated should they suffer the unthinkable. But never discount the possibility that they could be damaged psychologically beyond repair.

This, then, is a referendum on Coughlin, on Manning, on the leadership inside that room. On all of them, really. All hands on deck indeed.

"Can't just keep losing now, 'Oh, we'll make it up later, we'll make it up later.' . . . Later's now," Tollefson said.

Will the real New York Giants please stand up?

Later is now.

Get angry, and stay angry, from here to February.

Win the damn game.

Copyright 2009 N.Y.P. Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved
	Terms & Conditions     Privacy Copyright © 2009 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.