New York is on the brink -- a loss would push it over

	The Giants' Eli Manning has thrown seven interceptions over the last four games. Al Tielemans/SI
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Their 6-5 record and butt ugly three-game losing streak aside, you knew the Giants had reached the desperation stage this week when the news came that they had called the dreaded "players only'' team meeting, always the last resort of a club whose season has been pushed to the brink.

It's the football equivalent of whipping out the defibrillator paddles and administering a quick electric shock to the heart of a locker room. If it works, you can bring a season back to life and save the day. But if it doesn't, it's just another empty and futile gesture along the road to ruin.

And boy have the Giants about cornered the market of late in terms of things going to heck in a hand basket. Besides dealing with a host of key injuries in the past month or so, New York also has been knocked on its collective heels by a seemingly unending stream of soap opera fare featuring internal team conflict, controversy and good, old-fashioned lousy play.

The suddenly outspoken star running back has questioned the play-calling and the head coach's decision making. The always tightly-wound coach has shot back that all criticism and second-guessing must be kept in house, right before he himself went public, hanging two of his key players out to dry in the bitter post-game setting of the team's historic fourth-quarter collapse at Tennessee last week.

The team's sage-like defensive end openly called out the club's leading receiver for his nonchalance and lack of effort on some plays, then decided to shoot the messenger when asked by the media to amplify on his critique of a teammate. In the midst of it all, the young franchise quarterback looks lost and confused, as he continues to flounder on the field and the pressure of being the league's second-best passer named Manning seems to have robbed him of any semblance of confidence.

It all makes for something less than the ideal backdrop as the game that could either make or break the Giants' season approaches, that being Sunday's monstrous NFC East showdown with first-place Dallas (7-4) at the Meadowlands. With a win, as bad as things have been, New York would be right back on track for the playoffs, with what would amount to a one-game division lead with four weeks remaining. But let New York suffer another loss and look out below, because the wheels could completely come off at that point, with few escaping unscathed.

"If they lose, could it come unraveled for the Giants as quickly as everyone has said it could?'', said Randy Cross, the former 49ers offensive lineman and veteran NFL game analyst for CBS. "Yeah. If you're a pessimist, right now you could say Eli [Manning] has fish eyes, Tiki [Barber] is already a journalist, [Michael] Strahan hasn't even played in a month, and Plaxico [Burress] is just being Plax. But all of that is from the outside.

"Because if the Giants win this game against Dallas, 99.9 percent of all this stuff goes away and gets on the charter back to Dallas with the Cowboys. If they're tied, but the Giants are 4-0 in the division and have swept Dallas this season, with the Cowboys being 1-4 in the division, who's got the hammer now?''