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Sunday, Giants headmaster Tom Coughlin got all bent out of shape in what he perceived as dirty tactics by Greg Schiano trying to force a fumble when the Giants were in a victory formation.

Well, many have come to Greg Schiano’s defense, including “Da Coach.”

No person personifies what the NFL was and should be: punch your opponent in the mouth, play whistle-to-whistle, never take a play off, physical, bruising mentality than Mike Ditka.

The Hall of Fame tight end and Super Bowl-winning coach came out swinging on BSPN Radio in his defense of the first-year Bucs coach.

“I like Greg Schiano a lot, I really do,” Ditka said in his first sentence about the subject. “You have pads and a helmet on — play! Tom [Coughlin] is wrong about this, no matter what he says. He’s wrong.”

Joe has listened to loads of interviews of Greg Schiano and inevitably the leader of the New Schiano Order gets asked about making the transition from college to the pros. Then Schiano typically reminds/advises the interviewer that he spent years in the NFL as a Bears assistant, so he knew what the NFL was all about for years.

And that brings Joe to Sunday’s playcall by Schiano to go full throttle to force a fumble when the Giants were kneeling down to end the game (yes, the head coach referred to it as a specific “call” during his Monday news conference). Schiano knew full well that it wasn’t common in the NFL and it challenged an unwritten code. Schiano also prides himself on being a detail guy and calculating every move. So there’s no question in Joe’s mind that Schiano knew he’d stir up a controversy when he pulled the trigger on this call.

To think Schiano was naive to the uproar that blowing up a kneel-down likely would generate in the hyper-obsessed NFL media is just foolish.

Joe figures the head coach wanted a shot after a loss to move the media spotlight away from his team and to himself with this tactic, and further galvanize his club in the process. 

A couple of years ago, another head coach who liked to make bold statements told a crowd of media that his young club was “the best team in the NFC.” That line went a long way and achieved the desired effect as the Bucs finished 10-6.

Schiano prefers to make his statements on the field, but it’s clear to Joe that the head coach has no problem crafting some buzz if he thinks it will advance the mission of the New Schiano Order.

Joe is still in the greater New York metropolitan area as he types this late on a Monday night, and Joe can tell you that aside from the stoned, unwashed degenerates known in some circles as “Occupy Wall Street” that forced the New York police department to lock down lower Manhattan into a virtual cage (Joe accidently walked into the middle of this fiasco), the talk of the Big Apple was Giants headmaster Tom Coughlin throwing a hissy fit over Bucs coach Greg Schiano trying to force a late fumble while the Giants tried to ice the game in the final seconds.

As one can expect, cricket-watching, Marriott-sleeping, scone-loathing Peter King weighed in on the subject.

Wasting little time in his must-read SI.com Monday Morning Quarterback column, King wagged a finger at Schiano for what King perceived as an unethical move.

Coughlin’s right. Schiano’s wrong. I agree with playing to the final gun. No problem. But when one team is holding up the white flag, with a quarterback in full kneel-down mode, it’s a mistake to pig-pile on him. There’s a 1-in-1,000 chance the defense can jar the ball loose before the quarterback kneels and the whistle blows, but more likely what results is the risk of injury, on both sides of the ball. No question in my mind that if Schiano keeps trying to wreck victory formations, his own players will pay for it — and maybe in the form of retribution from vengeful players in the future.

Come on! If Joe wanted to watch flag football or kickball, he would. This is what seperates America as a richer culture from the third world virus of soccer. This is football, America’s game for Christ sake! It is a game of a physical nature with bruises common.

If this is truly a dirty play, then the NFL should make a rule like college that whenever someone’s knee is on the ground the play is dead.

Don’t like it? Change the rules.

So who is Giants headmaster Tom Coughlin going to yell at now?

The talk of the NFL yesterday was how Coughlin dressed down Bucs coach Greg Schiano for what Coughlin thought was a dirty play when Schiano ordered the Bucs to try to dislodge the ball from Eli Manning during a kneeldown on the final play in the sickening Bucs collapse of a loss to the Super Bowl champs Sunday.

Well, the suits at the NFL headquarters on Park Avenue looked at the evidence and, in a manner of speaking, backed up Schiano and stated Coughlin was out of line, so reports Mike Garafolo of USA Today.

@MikeGarafolo: If anyone was wondering, the NFL will have nothing further on the final play of NYG-TB. No violations on the play or afterward, they say.

This is just nonsense how much run this play has gotten. If it was, say, Pete Carroll in Seattle, it would barely create a ripple. But since it happened in the media capital of the western hemisphere… controversy!

Undrafted rookie Leonard Johnson seems to be above Myron Lewis on the depth chart

Those paying attention Sunday saw that rookie Leonard Johnson was the cornerback who jumped in the game when Eric Wright hurt his back in the second half.

Myron Lewis stayed on the bench.

With E.J. Biggers and Anthony Gaitor getting healthy and Brandon McDonald in a major role as nickel cornerback, Joe’s not sure how long Lewis, a 201o third-round pick sticks on the roster.

Rockstar general manager Mark Dominik’s overall draft record has been looking much better since the start of the 2012 season, but Joe’s not seeing a Lewis revival — or survival — anytime soon.

A true voice of reason here from Sports Illustrated scribe Andrew Perloff on the attitude of the New Schiano Order and why Tom Coughlin was being a drama queen. Seductive and intelligent Maggie Gray joins in on this SI.com video.

Joe gulped when he saw Arrelious Benn lined up to return the first kickoff coming the Bucs’ way Sunday.

Benn didn’t play in the preseason, missed nearly all of training camp, and this was how the Bucs would throw him into the fire? As a kickoff returner, an unfamiliar role for him? 

Benn fumbled that first return, but thankfully Quincy Black dove on the ball. And then Benn settled into a solid and busy day on the job with a 55-yard effort on one of his seven returns.

Joe was intrigued by this role for Benn on a few levels. Clearly, the Bucs viewed him as completely healthy, which makes Joe wonder why Benn was not targeted in the passing game against the Giants. Benn also was active on coverage teams, so again, health wasn’t an issue. 

Also, last week Greg Schiano said rookie Michael Smith, kick returner against the Panthers, did a good job in the home-opener but the Bucs’ return team was poorly coached and didn’t block well. Though this week Smith was yanked.

Benn showed some flashes, but Joe still prefers Sammie Stroughter as the No. 1 kickoff returner. Stroughter’s brought one to the house, he’s sure-handed, and he ripped off a 78-yarder in the home-opener last season, the play that left him with a busted foot and cost him more than half the 2011 season.

Deion Sanders didn’t mince words on the NFL Network after the Bucs-Giants game. He didn’t like anything about Greg Schiano defending his edict to the Bucs to play 100 percent through the kneel-down of Eli Manning to close out the Giants 41-34 victory Sunday.

NFL Network rolled tape of Schiano saying he coaches clean, hard football for 60 minutes. And then Sanders cut in with his disgust.

“That don’t work. That’s ignorant. That doesn’t work. It’s unwritten rules in the NFL and you abide by them,” Sanders said. “He’s a young coach coming up trying to establish credibility and credential with his players saying, ‘Guys, we go whistle to whistle.’ That don’t work in the NFL.”

Here’s the tape of the exchange.

Joe had no problem with the Bucs’ actions on the final play, and Sanders calling Schiano’s comments “ignorant” crossed a line. It’s ironic to Joe how Sanders, who loved to showboat and humiliate opponents, is lecturing on unwritten rules of the NFL.

Josh Freeman was quick to call his interception with seconds left in the third quarter a “bonehead” play after Sunday’s Giants-Bucs game.

And it was ugly Freeman. It was the force-the-ball into Kellen Winslow Freeman fans were tortured by last year when No. 5 led the NFL in interceptions.

But Joe has to focus on what Freeman delivered in the fourth quarter as encouraging. Down a touchdown with four minutes left and momentum completely owned by the Giants, Freeman was clinical with three passes to Dallas Clark before uncorking a monster, 60-yards-in-the-air throw to Mike Williams for a touchdown. That’s the fourth-quarter magic and fearlessness Freeman delivered in 2010.

Then down a touchdown again with 31 seconds left, Freeman rips off tight throws to Vincent Jackson and Williams, who was sickeningly robbed by officials’ overturning his catch at the Giants’ 16 yard line. Regardless of the call, it was another 2010-like, fourth-quarter precision throw by Freeman.

Joe’s taking Freeman’s obvious confidence late as a great sign. Not enough for a win yesterday, but the guy who made his mark on the NFL in 2010 as the comeback quarterback showed signs he’s still got those heroics in him.

Yesterday’s late second-half interception by Eric Wright, who turned into an extraordinary 60-yard, 12-second return for a touchdown, was one of the greatest defensive plays in Bucs history.

Joe must take a moment to give the play the love it deserves. You can soak up the video via this NFL.com link.

Wright’s pick-6 had all the elements, including Wright having the presence of mind to understand that he caught the ball with 21 seconds left in the half and the Bucs needed a big return to ensure a chance at a score before halftime.

Wright makes a savvy, athletic, leaping catch on the ball, then bolts forward for five yards only to pull back to set up his blockers — twice — before darting to daylight and the end zone.

Just an extraordinary play, one of the best efforts in a Bucs uniform that Joe’s seen in years.

Joe just knew this was going to get out of hand. When the Bucs tried to knock the ball out of Eli Manning’s hands when the Giants tried a kneel-down in a victory formation, Giants headmaster went off on Schiano after the game in this season’s version of Jim Harbaugh and Jim Schwartz.

Joe just knew the Big Apple fourth estate would tee off on Schiano and that’s exactly what is happening. Gary Myers of the New York Daily News unloads on the Bucs coach for what he perceives as dirty tactics.

That was personal. This was dangerous. Schiano ordered his guys to go after Manning, go after the ball. “If they watch Rutgers, they would know, that’s what we do at the end of the game,” he said.

Forgive Coughlin if he didn’t pop the best of “The Schiano Years” into his DVD player, although it wouldn’t have taken much more than two or three minutes to watch.
“We fight until the game is over,” Schiano said. “There’s nothing dirty about it.”

College coaches who try to bring college stuff to the NFL usually wind up back in college. “I don’t think you do that at this level,” Coughlin said.

This is just nonsense, though comical nonsense, on so many levels.

First, if Schiano really did tell the Bucs defense to go after Manning, how come his jersey was clean? Manning was so unfazed by the Bucs’ pass rush throughout the game, it was as if he had an Ebola virus.

Second, Coughlin admitted this week he has watched Rutgers tape to try to decipher just what Schiano football is.

Of course, no one would be saying anything if Justin Tuck knocked a ball loose from Josh Freeman on a kneel down and scored a defensive touchdown.

Giants offensive lineman Chris Snee claims the Bucs were trying to take out people’s knees yesterday.

Joe loves the NFL Network. LOVES it. One reason is they show old games and highlights of old games like the Raiders-Steelers classics.

When those two teams played, it more a backalley brawl than a football game. Defensive players were going after opponents’ knees — 10 yards out of bounds — and clotheslining players and kneeing people in the groin play after play and a yellow hanky was not to be seen.

Now, half the roster of both teams would be suspended.

Well, it seems the Giants players are whining that the Bucs are the new Raidesr and trying to take out knees, so the Giants told Mike Garafolo of USA Today.

Re: scrum on last play, Snee called Bucs’ actions “Busch league.” Said they were throwing “helmets into knees.”

Well. Was it just the fact the Giants may not be used to other teams punching them in the mouth? Giants players were dropping like flies out there Sunday.

Then, Giants headmaster Tom Coughlin gets into a hissyfit with Bucs coach Greg Schiano for the Bucs playing too hard.

Sad. Joe thought better of the Giants than to get all snippy like this.

Veteran sports columnist Gary Shelton gives his take on the Bucs fourth quarter defensive meltdown to the Giants Sunday in this Tampa Bay Times video.

Tom Coughlin is no longer a Greg Schiano fan

Tom Coughlin had nothing but kind words for the New Schiano Order last week, but now he’s got a problem with it.

After Josh Freeman’s last second interception, the Giants needed a kneel-down play to close out the game. But the New Schiano Order plays through to the final whistle and plays hard on kneel-downs, which got the old man head coach in Schiano’s face after the final whislte.

The heated exchange was on the minds of reporters after the 41-34 loss. Schiano defended the Bucs actions. It’s the Schiano way, the Rutgers way,

“We fight until they tell us the game is over,” Schiano said. “There’s nothing dirty about it. There’s nothing illegal about it.

“We’re not going to quit. That’s just the way I coach and teach our players. Some people are upset about it. I guess that’s just the way it goes. I don’t have any hesitation that that’s the way we play, clean, hard football until the game is over.”

Screw Coughlin. That’s Joe’s reaction.

It’s the New Schiano Order, deal with it, especially on the field where Joe Pisarcik made history.

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — This Bucs loss, which stung as bad as acid reflux at 4 a.m. after a long night of many beers, wasn’t as painful to some Bucs players.

“We hung with the World Champions,” some Bucs said.

“We can play with any team,” others sighed.

Bucs wide receiver Mike Williams was not one of them. For him, the simple fact is what matters at the end of the day is what’s on the scoreboard. And for the Bucs, it was less points than the Giants.

“We still didn’t win the game,” Williams said. “It didn’t matter if we lost by one or lost by 50; it didn’t matter if we fought hard or didn’t fight hard. Losing is losing.

“We have to look at the film to see where we can get better. We have to play better.”

It seemed Williams had a long catch of a Josh Freeman bomb with 12 seconds left deep in Giants territory. But after an official review, the play was waived off, declared an incomplete pass.

Williams took the road to less fines and wouldn’t blame a scab ref for overturning the play.

“The refs made their call, that’s their job,” Williams said. “My job is to catch balls and block and catch touchdowns. [Overturning the catch] was not my call. That’s their job.”

Did the Bucs ever really play physical football under Raheem Morris?

Despite Raheem’s talk of being violent and yungry, it never really happened on either side of the ball, except late in the 2010 season when the offensive line was blocking for LeGarrette Blount.

But in the area of physicality, it truly is a New Schiano Order. And that was on display today in full force.

The Bucs knocked three Giants out of the game — in the first half. Mason Foster drilled WR Domenik Hixon in a play that drew a personal foul, but that was just a wussy call of the modern NFL. Foster was just playing hard football and Joe can assure reader that Greg Schiano will applaud that play. Then Ahmad Bradshaw aborbed a neck-crushing hit, and Eric Wright clobbered Henry Hynoski low (photo above) and left him in agony on the turf.

Joe’s not counting it since it was just part of typical play, but the physical play also claimed Giants starting right tackle David Diehl in the first half.

Don’t accuse the New Schiano Order of playing soft football. You’d be wrong. Eventually, this will deliver the Bucs wins over the course of the season. Not every team has the backbone, or the quarterback, of the Super Bowl champs.

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — The best honor an offensive lineman can have is when his name is never uttered in an NFL game. That was pretty much the case with Demar Dotson today in a loss more painful than acid reflux.

Jeremy Trueblood, the Bucs starting right tackle, came down with a bum ankle this week and was inactive. Dotson started in place of Trueblood.

Joe was confident that the Giants would flood the right side of the Bucs offensive line with their powerful defensive linemen, led by Jason Pierre-Paul, and expose the Bucs’ flank manned by backups, including right guard Ted Larsen.

But Larsen, and Dotson, held their own against the best defensive line in the NFL. This nasty three-touchdown, fourth quarter collapse is not on their shoulders.

“It was a challenge, a big-time challenge, going out there and competing with those guys because those guys are so good,” Dotson told Joe after today’s loss. “It was an opportunity to step up.”

Dotson claimed his solid play was a result of learning from his Bucs teammates.

“I learn a lot from those guys,” Dotson said. “I learn from them all the time. I have confidence in myself so that others can have confidence in me. I work just as hard as those guys do and I think I can be a really good tackle in this league. I have to get better every day.”

Take a look at the film and you’ll see that the celebration of Mike Williams’ stunning 41-yard touchdown grab late in the fourth quarter has a surprise guest early in the end-zone celebration.

That would be LeGarrette Blount.

The best Joe could tell, Blount was not on the field for the play. In fact, Blount had no carries and appeared to only be in the game for one offensive snap.

But there was Blount fired up for his teammate. Joe brings this up because so many of Joe’s media brethren have implied that Blount has a poor attitude that is escalating now that he is a backup. Greg Schiano all but called that nonsense one day last week after the Carolina game, but the implication persists.

Joe hopes Blount’s actions on that touchdown quiet some of the negative chatter. Joe remembers well when Kellen Winslow pouted after a Preston Parker touchdown and got in Josh Freeman’s ear when he should have been celebrating in last year’s inspiring home victory against the Saints.

Blount is no Winslow, despite what some want to believe. As for why Mike Sullivan can’t yet find a role for Blount, that’s a topic for another day.

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Remember how bad, awful, rotten, pathetic the Bucs played in 2011? Remember how badly the Bucs were alley-beaten by the dregs of the NFL such as the Jags?

Sure, the Bucs suffered a painful loss, almost like a wrestling script where a grappler seemingly rises from the dead just before the bell to render his foe defeated? That’s what the loss to the Super Bowl champs felt like in the Garden State this afternoon.

The loss actually proved something to Bucs rookie safety Mark Barron: That even if the team folds in the fourth quarter, it showed the Bucs can hang with the NFL’s uppercrust.

“We feel we can play with anybody as long as we can execute,” Barron said after the crushing 41-34 gut-wrenching loss to the Giants. “I feel if we can come out and execute, we can play with or beat any team in the league.”

But the Bucs picked the wrong team to toy with in the end, a team that had a week and a half off, a team looking for its first win, a team that hoisted the Vince Lombardi Trophy aloft in victory last February, a team with two Super Bowl MVP trophies on his mantle, Eli Manning.

“He came out and played a great game,” Barron said. “He is smart. We came out and pretty much had to go back and forth on the play calls with him all night. He just played a great game.

“Things just didn’t go our way today. [The Giants] played hard all the way — so did we — they are a tough team.”

Joe referenced this in the instant postgame post below, but it bears further analysis.

Mike Sullivan is in his first-ever season calling plays and his performance bears scrutiny.

In the third quarter with only 39 seconds left, the Bucs started a new drive with a 27-16 lead following a Giants’ long drive and momentum-grabbing field goal. Time to show your identity by running the football, rest your defense and eat clock, right? Nope.

Despite running on the previous drive with Doug Martin on five consecutive plays and burning clock and wearing down the Giants defense — even Troy Aikman referenced the punishing effects of running late in games —  Mike Sullivan went to the air on first down this time, which he did most of the game.

Joe was livid.  

The Bucs are supposed to have a run-first, punch-you-in-the-face identity, but they quit on that when they needed it most. Why not ask Donald Penn, Carl Nicks and Doug Martin, who had solid games, to put the damn game on their backs with 15 minutes left and a two-score lead? You’ve also got a fresh LeGarrette Blount sitting on the sidelines ready for a punishing run or two.

But Freeman threw a dangerous ball on first down up the middle incomplete to Vincent Jackson. Then Freeman dropped back again and forced a ball in traffic to Jackson that was picked off.

That needless 18-second drive was a killer.

Sullivan got too damn cute. Sure, he made good calls pumping the ball down field and actually pulled a successful end around with Preston Parker, but Joe’s got to give Sullivan a bad grade for this game. Dallas Clark was a missing weapon until the final drive, and he didn’t use his backs well.

Yes, Joe realizes the Bucs defense endured an epic torching, but Sullivan didn’t help their cause much.

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — This one will sting a while.

The Bucs had the world champs on the ropes, bleeding, sucking air, in their own living room no less. The Bucs looked to be on the verge of a historic win and possible franchise-turning victory.

But then, the ghost of Raheem Morris appeared.

Giants quarterback Eli Manning obliterated the Bucs for the eighth-most passing yards in a single game in NFL history by rocking the Bucs defense for 510 yards, tying Drew Brees in a come-from behind, gut-punching loss delivered to the Bucs.

Manning threw with such ease in the fourth quarter it looked like backyard football. The Bucs couldn’t get Manning’s jersey dirty, couldn’t stop the slant, couldn’t stop the bomb.

It seemed the only time the Bucs could stop the Giants was when the Giants stopped themselves by Manning throwing a pick or the Giants receivers simply dropping the ball.

For fans who believe that the Bucs — who have now given up 813 yards through the air in two games — and Greg Schiano will change things around to somehow stop the bleeding via the pass, think otherwise said Bucs cornerback Aqib Talib.

“This is our defense, man,” Talib said. “It ain’t no all or nothing, it’s our defense. This [the schemes are]what you are going to see all year. We are either going to make those plays on the back end, or lose. Simple a that. That’s what it is going to. That’s how it’s going to be and I don’t mind that at all. That’s our defense.

“We fought, we just didn’t make enough plays. They made one more play than we did. A loss is a loss, no matter if they have a thousand yards running or a thousand yards passing. When you come out with an ‘L’ they all feel the same way to me.”