The one time incentive to win — which became a painful reminder of another season without a playoff berth — mysteriously disappeared after Giants head coach Tom Coughlin was asked if he would consider taking it down.
At his afternoon press conference, a cranky Coughlin said, "I didn't put it up, so I'm not taking it down."
Asked if it is still there, he said, “I don’t know. You tell me.’’
Asked if it is still there, he said, “I don’t know. You tell me.’’
In fact, the "clock" — really more like a calendar — counting down towards Super Bowl XLVIII at MetLife Stadium later appeared to be gone from its prominent position.
That job, it appears, was left to Reese, who brought the memento to the Giants training facility locker room during training camp when he put everyone on notice.
Perhaps the reality of playing these last three games without playoff consequences got to Coughlin on Wednesday. Because he appeared as agitated and testy in the presser as he has all season.
So went the tone of the day for Coughlin, who sounded like a man who was finally fed up in the aftermath of his team’s playoff-hope-killing 37-14 loss to the Chargers on Sunday in San Diego.
After giving a run-down of the players on the team’s injury report who were not expected to practice Wednesday, followed by a detailed scouting report on the visiting 11-2 Seahawks, Coughlin was asked how he “guards against’’ his players’ disappointment at being out of contention with three games to play.
“I’ve mentioned how this has been handled many, many times,’’ Coughlin said, seemingly annoyed that he was going to have to answer it again. “We are a resilient team and I believe we will bounce back. Mondays are difficult [and] Wednesdays we start to come up. My job has become to encourage, to lift them back up, to point us in the right direction, and that’s what I continue to do.
"Our No. 1 objective is we have a three-game schedule and we want to play as well as we possibly can."
Tick, tick, tick...
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