"The Giants desperately need to beat the Saints on Monday night or the undefeated Super Bowl champion Packers next Sunday at home. A victory in either game would guarantee when they go to Dallas in two weeks they would be playing for first place in the NFC East.

Assuming the Cowboys beat the Cardinals in Arizona next Sunday to get to 8-4, as long as the Giants, who are 6-4, do no worse than split against the Saints and Packers, then they would be 7-5 when they play at Cowboys Stadium on Dec. 11. At that point, a victory would put them back in first place based on the head-to-head tiebreaker.

The outcome of the next three games could be the determining factor whether Tom Coughlin is back next year. The Giants do not want to fire Coughlin. Stability and continuity are rare in the NFL. Coughlin is in his eighth season with the Giants and only Andy Reid, Bill Belichick and Marvin Lewis have been with their teams longer.

But these second-half collapses are getting a little old. It's the same thing with the Giants every season: They start off 6-2 and then it's a different team over the final eight games.

Coughlin did a great job guiding the Giants to a two-game lead on Dallas in the first half of the season but they have lost to the 49ers and Eagles back-to-back. The "here we go again" doubt has to be creeping into the locker room.

No team had a worse August after the lockout than the Giants. If the Giants fail to make the playoffs and Coughlin cannot finish what he started, then John Mara and Steve Tisch are going to be faced with a difficult decision: Can they fire a man who won them a Super Bowl four years ago but has not won a playoff game since? Is this Coughlin's fault?"