Master Coughlin?

Tiki Barber: "Coach Coughlin is very hard-nosed, and I didn't get a lot of time off, couldn't sit down and rest myself, and so it was a constant grind -- a physical grind on me that started to take its toll. The grind took its toll on me and really forced me to start thinking about what I wanted to do next. And that's not a bad thing. That's a good thing, for me at least. Maybe not for the Giants, because they lose one of their great players, but for me, it is."

"There'd be days where I couldn't move on Tuesday or Wednesday at practice, and he'd get mad at me for going half-speed. And I told him, 'Coach, I can't do it. I'm gonna be out here, I'm never gonna miss a practice, but I can't give you what you want all the time.' And he understood. We were in full pads for 17 weeks, and with the amount of injuries that we had, it just takes a toll on you. You just physically don't want to be out there when your body feels the way you do in full pads. And while it probably doesn't have a really detrimental effect on how you practice or how you play, it does on your mind. And if you lose your mind in this game, you lose a lot. And that's something that [Coughlin] has to realize. And I think he does [now].

Barber’s comments concerning Coughlin are disconcerting. Last season, Coughlin’s “institutional control” was questioned. Given this portrait, the alarm was warranted. The unspoken is are there Giants with concurring opinions?