I could fill this entire column up with the word “awful” repeated 600 times, but I don’t think that would be a very interesting read. In fact, it would be about as interesting as the Giants game was yesterday. I need to write this column now and exorcise all the demons from this game so I don’t have to think about it anymore. It was that bad. Speaking of demons, watching yesterday’s game was actually a more traumatizing experience than seeing Paranormal Activity, which I spent $20 on last week. The Giants game, luckily, was free. I can keep going. The fact of the matter is, I’m angry. I’m also disappointed, disgusted, embarrassed and shocked. Maybe a little worried too.

I could spin this loss in a million different ways if I wanted to and I could go on and try to find some positives from this game hidden beneath the rubble and debris, but honestly, I didn’t see any positives. Not one. The Giants were outplayed by the Saints yesterday in every possible way a football team can be outplayed. It was brutal and it was unrelenting and the most discouraging part was that it was our defense that was dismantled. Drew Brees picked apart our defense for four quarters without letting up. We weren’t just killed by the Saints; we were cut up into little pieces Dexter-style, stuffed inside a big garbage bag and dumped into the ocean.

I don’t have anything good to say about this game. From the opening drive of the game, the New Orleans Saints controlled everything. They controlled the line of scrimmage, they controlled the ball, they controlled the clock and they controlled the momentum. The Giants allowed the most yards by an opponent in one game since 1980. That’s almost 30 years. Drew Brees didn’t even feel so much as the breath of a Giants defender until midway through the second quarter. Why the Giants defense looked so unprepared and overwhelmed, I will never know. Drew Brees had so much time to throw yesterday that I thought I saw him whip out his phone and answer a text message before completing yet another laser-guided bullet to Marques Colston or Lance Moore. The Giants had absolutely no penetration on the Saints offensive line. A week after sacking JaMarcus Russell seven times, the Giants defensive line treated Drew Brees like he had the swine flu. Now I know it’s really not a valid comparison to put Brees and Russell side by side, but between last week’s performance and yesterday’s, it was almost like watching two completely different teams. Safety C.C. Brown was burned so many times that he ended up leading the team with 13 tackles. Thirteen tackles would normally mean you’re all around the ball, but yesterday it meant that the ball was all around him. Brees took advantage of Brown over and over and over again until I started to feel a little guilty that I was watching it.

The most depressing part of the catastrophe was that it could have been salvaged. Despite the fact that the defense never made it to the Superdome yesterday afternoon, the offense seemed tobe  functioning at it’s normal capacity. Eli tried desperately to keep the game close, but just couldn’t keep up with the defense’s incompetence. A 15-yard touchdown pass to Mario Manningham with 3:19 to go in the first half cut the Saints lead to 27-17. On the ensuing drive, the Giants stopped New Orleans on a 4th and Goal from the 1 for a huge goal-line stand that appeared to have swung the momentum over to the Giants. It was exactly the kind of stop that the defense needed and it was a huge spark for the team. The Giants took over with a little over a minute remaining and looked like they would drive for another field goal before the half to perhaps make it 27-20, however Eli fumbled the football and after a extended chase for the loose ball, the Saints recovered on the Giants 7. A few plays later, it was 34-17 and everything was downhill from there. Had the Giants gone into the half down only 7, the whole second half might have unfolded differently, and as it was, that fumble proved to be a critical turning point in the game.

Now I can take the easy way out and cope with this terrible loss the way I would any other loss (by taking cheap shots at the Eagles and Jets) but I won’t do that today. All I will say is that yesterday’s game was either an aberration or an ominous sign of things to come. No matter which way you look at it, the Giants have had things handed to them on a silver platter for the first five weeks. Wins over the Redskins, Bucs, Chiefs and Raiders haven’t really proved anything, and detractors will now admit that even the win over Dallas didn’t come easily, a game in which the defense allowed 251 yards on the ground. Was yesterday a sign of what the Giants will look like against the top teams in the league? Or was it simply a bad day? We won’t really know until next week’s Sunday night game at home against Arizona, another high-powered offense similar to New Orleans. And if yesterday’s game was in fact a sign of things to come, it might be a longer season than we had thought. I just hope I’m wrong.