INDIANAPOLIS - All season, the Giants defense seemed like the kind of mess Perry Fewell couldn’t mop up.
There were injuries.
Ends Justin Tuck and Osi Umenyiora, two of the anchors, were banged up.
There were technical glitches.
Rookies did not get the system, and even veterans were confused.
And for a unit that Fewell worked hard since arriving in New York in 2010, there were performances that were completely embarrassing.
In back-to-back weeks, the Giants let the Saints run up 49 points behind four touchdown passes from Drew Brees, then watched the Packers hang another 38 behind four more TDs from Aaron Rodgers.
Fewell’s breaking point came after the Giants let the Redskins jump to a 17-3 first-half lead in a Week 15 loss. At that point, the Giants were fighting for their lives in the NFC East.
In their last five games, the Giants have 20 sacks and 11 takeaways and have held opposing quarterbacks to a .578 completion percentage and 5.8 yards per attempt. They have allowed just 13.4 points per game since the Redskins loss.
Fewell doesn’t curse - his alternative is, “Jeez, oh Pete!’’ - but he yells.
“He gets after it when he needs to,’’ Umenyiora said.
After that loss, he needed to.
“I thought we didn’t play very good football,’’ Fewell said. “We didn’t play passionate football, and it is a little bit out of character for me, but I just felt like our defense and our people needed to hear how we felt about our play, and I thought we could do something about that, and our guys responded. That’s what you want, you want your team to respond.’’
Mathias Kiwanuka said, “He’s not a screamer, he’s not a cusser, but he was animated and he said some things that were obviously heartfelt, but they were true and they needed to be said. We didn’t have a good performance that week, and he called us out. He holds himself accountable, he holds all of us accountable and that’s basically what he was doing at that point.’’
Since then, the Giants have turned their season around and made a Super Bowl run powered by a rejuvenated defense. A team that couldn’t get within sniffing distance of the quarterback during the regular season has piled up nine sacks in the postseason. They held the Falcons to 2 points in their first playoff win and they beat the Packers and 49ers by grounding Green Bay’s high-powered offense and slugging it out with San Francisco’s defense.
Fewell said the solution was simple.
“Communication,’’ he said. “It sounds simple, but it’s not easy. When your players stop listening, you’re in trouble. The players never stopped listening. They wanted to get it right.’’
