Many a mother has told her child that if you don't have anything nice to say, it is best not to say anything at all.
If that were standard operating procedure at NBC New York, there wouldn't be anything else to read about Monday night's 49-24 loss to the Saints.
Finding something nice to say about the effort the Giants put forth in the game would be like trying to say something nice about a restaurant that served you bad oysters and uncooked pork.
Oh, you could stretch if you were so inclined to point out that Victor Cruz had another nice game and that Jason Pierre-Paul didn't get the memo from his defensive teammates that they were on strike for this contest. And the Giants certainly knew how to make the most out of the slew of personal fouls the Saints committed during the contest. It gets dicey beyond that point, though.
Drew Brees has slaughtered a lot of opposing defenses in the Superdome, but he might never have had an easier time of it than he did against the Giants.
Brees completed pass after pass, threw four touchdowns, ran for another one and generally looked like he was playing with a video game version of himself instead of the real thing.
The Giants pass rush, talked about in the dulcet tones usually reserved for mystical doings, either didn't make the trip to the Big Easy or wasn't employed properly by Perry Fewell.
The defense looked like the one that got Bill Sheridan run out of town after the 2009 season, constantly moving backward and letting the offense do everything it wanted without even a hint of resistance.
By the third quarter, when the Saints had already gained 461 yards, it looked like the unit had simply decided to pack it in. That was best evidenced by a play that saw Justin Tuck barely miss a sack of Brees and then sit on his knees to watch Brees complete a pass to Pierre Thomas that went for a first down.
But there were plenty of candidates for biggest quitter of the night for the Giants, and you could also choose Corey Webster for his refusal even to try to tackle Thomas as he sprinted into the end zone in the fourth quarter.
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Somewhere Aaron Rodgers, who faces the Giants next Sunday, was watching all of this and smiling broadly to himself. The Packers offense has more than a little bit in common with the one that left the Giants for dead on Monday night, so the pain might not be ending just yet for the boys in blue.
The magnitude of this defeat will serve as kerosene on the fire already simmering under the seat of Tom Coughlin as well as the one set by those worried about another second half collapse.
Injuries have hurt the team — Osi Umenyiora left early with a sprained ankle — but there's no excuse for a performance like this one from a team with designs on anything other than a top draft pick.
It's just three games into the second half, yet the Giants have already guaranteed that they will continue Coughlin's streak of finishing with a worse record than the first half. They're now a game back of every team they're fighting for a playoff spot, a bad sign when the team is showing more signs of weakness every week.
The clock hasn't struck midnight just yet, but it is getting awfully late.
Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City. You can follow him on Twitter and he is also a contributor to Pro Football Talk.
