Lupica: Setting the Big Blue Bar

Tom Coughlin and the Giants are just hoping to make the playoffs.The Giants, trying to win the NFC East at 8-8 and that’s if they’re lucky, play the exact same kind of big game against the Panthers on Sunday that they played a month ago when the Patriots were the unbeaten team coming into MetLife Stadium. It means that once again this feels like a big game because of the visitor, not the home team.

That is where we are with a team that has shown so little late-game efficiency or poise this season, one that has underachieved as much as any team in the league and may be fighting the rest of the way for the honor of being thrown out of a fourth-floor window by the Seahawks in the first round of…