We love when "pundits" tell us that penalties are “just part of the game” – like rain or snow or wind or an act of God. It’s another way of saying, “Hey, don’t blame the coach. Penalties are shit and shit just happens.”

 

Yes, shit often does just happen. But it’s amazing how much more often shit happens to some coaches than to others.

 

Take Tom Coughlin, for instance. As he gears up for Sunday's big divisional showdown against the Redskins – the Giants' first game since they were shellacked by the Seahawks and Coughlin was shellacked by Jeremy Shockey –it's interesting to look at the role penalties have played in New York's fortunes over the past year. These penalties tell us a lot about the Giants ... and they make us question the reputation their coach has as a spit-polished disciplinarian.

 

The Giants were one of the most penalized teams in football last year. In fact, only two teams in football were penalized more often, and they were two of the worst teams in the NFL. The Raiders and Cardinals were a combined 9-23 last year, and a truly dreadful 2-17 against quality opponents. 

 

Here’s a look at the bottom quarter of the league in terms of most penalties incurred last year:

 

 

Do bad teams commit more penalties, or are teams bad because they commit penalties? It's an interesting question. And, as football fans see every week of the season, the answer seems to be that it's a little of both. 

 

But what jumps out most from this chart is the third-place ranking of the Giants, the only team in that group with 10 or more wins and the only one to make the playoffs last year. The Dolphins were the only other team among the league’s eight highest-penalized to post a winning record.

 

The combined won-lost record of the other seven teams was a horrendous 39-73 (.348). The Giants were 11-5 (.688).

 

The Giants don’t easily fit into either side of our hypothetical question up above: They were penalized more than most bad teams, yet they weren’t a bad team. Clearly, though, they were – and are – doing something to draw those penalties, and there’s a very good chance that the penalties are what keep them from being a very good or even a great team.

 

If the Giants continue to play as poorly this year as they did against Seattle in Week 3 (a 42-30 loss), we can point to the second half of last season as the time when something in the team began to unravel.

 

For the first eight games in 2005, the Giants were assessed just four more penalties than their opponents. Then on Nov. 6, in the eighth game of their season, the Giants were flagged 10 times for 81 yards in a 24-6 victory over San Francisco. The 49ers drew 12 for 80 yards, but you’d expect them to get more penalties because they were, well, one of the league’s worst teams and obviously inferior to the Giants.   

 

Those 10 penalties were a sign that things were about to fall apart, penalty-wise, for the Giants. In the 11 games since then, they've been penalized far more often than their opponents.

 

Timeframe	Giants Penalties	Oppt. Penalties
First 8 games, '05	71	75
11 games since	99	84

 

You don’t have to be a genius to interpret that correctly: Through the first half of the 2005 season, the Giants were penalized slightly less often than their opponents. Since then, they’ve been penalized significantly more often. In fact, over the last 11 regular season games, New York has been penalized more than any team in the NFL.

 

The rise in penalties has coincided directly with a decline in fortunes for New York. The Giants were 6-2 in those first eight games. They're 6-5 in the 11 games since.

 

More damning than the number of penalties, though, is the type of penalty the Giants have consistently incurred. Traditional wisdom, or at least what passes for wisdom among old football sages from W.W. “Pudge” Heffelfinger through Bill Parcells, has it that a higher penalty count can be endured if most of the penalties are called on the defense.

 

The reasoning is that defensive penalties generally indicate aggressiveness – at least, that’s what coaches say when they’re winning. When they’re losing and the defense draws a key penalty, they spike their headphones. But penalties called on the offense are almost always bad, and they often indicate confusion and poor communication. Eighty of New York's 143 penalties last year (56 percent) were on the offense. An amazing 38 of those (26.6 percent) were false starts. 

 

The Giants were called for so many false starts in their 24-21 loss to Seattle last year (11) that referee Larry Nemmers needed rotator cuff surgery after the game.

 

A false start only moves a team back five yards, but it can make a huge difference when it comes time to convert that precious third down. Would you rather face 3rd-and-2 or 3rd-and-7? A 3rd-and-2 is basically a running down, but one on which you can use just about any kind of play you want. A 3rd-and-7, though, is almost always a passing down (unless Paul Hackett is calling the plays) and the defense will be ready with extra coverage men or pass rushers.

 

Former 49ers quarterback Steve Young once gave an excellent analogy of what it was like to constantly face 3rd-and-5s or longer: “It’s like trying to play tennis while wearing ankle weights.” 

 

Some could argue that last year's 11-false-starts performance against Seattle makes the problem appear worse than it is. But things look bleak even without that game.

 

Over their final five games of last season and first three of this season, the Giants have been whistled for 21 false starts. Their opponents over that same stretch have been called for seven. At least the Giants have been consistent: they've committed three false starts in each of their last four regular-season games, dating back to the 2005 finale against Oakland.

 

The penalties have cost them more than yardage: Last season, Eli Manning had two touchdown passes called back because of false start infractions.

 

So what's the problem? Does Eli Manning mumble? Is that Deep Southern drawl too thick for his teammates to decipher? Can the Giants afford a speech therapist? 

 

One obvious problem is head coach Tom Coughlin. His spit-polish discipline looks good when you read about it in the papers or hear about it from the "pundits." 

 

But you'll notice that locker-room dissension has followed him from town to town. This dissension manifested itself most recently in Jeremy Shockey's brazen verbal assault on his coach following the loss to Seattle. Sorry, but rebellion in the ranks is hardly a sign of a well-disciplined organization. In fact, it's quite the opposite.

 

We can also judge discipline by looking at a team's on-field performance. Disciplined teams commit few penalties. The Giants commit many penalites. You do the math.

 

New York has a load of offensive talent. They have scored 81 points in just three games this year, and their average of 27.0 PPG puts them fifth in the league at this early point in the season. But their offense in the second half always seems in a state of crisis management. Here's an amazing stat:

A truly smart coach might take this as an indication that there’s something wrong with his game plans. Coughlin’s game plans always seem to disintegrate rapidly in the first or second quarter, leaving Manning to furiously fire away in an effort to bail out the Giants. Against Seattle in Week 3, they were down 35-3 at halftime before finally losing 42-30.

 

The Giants are almost always in situations where they can shoot themselves in the foot with mental mistakes and unforced errors – which is what foolish penalties like false starts are.

 

Coughlin is one of those so-called disciplinarians who is in charge but never quite in control. He imposes rules and regulations on his players but doesn’t seem to know how to teach fundamentals or stress attention to detail.