Super Bowl champions need to overcome home woes

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) -Looking at the New York Giants' Super Bowl rings, a few things stand out besides the diamonds.

The team's three Super Bowl trophies. The "NY." The words "World Champions" and "Eleven Straight On The Road."

Nowhere is there a mention of the team's record at home, and with good reason. The Giants stunk. They went 3-5 at Giants Stadium for the second straight year and still won the NFL title.

"That's crazy," kicker Lawrence Tynes said Tuesday, just two days before the team was to kick off the NFL season against the Washington Redskins in the unfriendly confines of you know where.

"It is usually not that way in the National Football League, but for whatever reason we just didn't get it done at home last year," Tynes said. "If you think about it, had we won some of those games, we probably would have had home-field advantage for the playoffs. To get those types of things, we're going to have to win at home this year."

Winning at home has been one of the points coach Tom Coughlin has discussed with his team.

"Quite frankly, our fans deserve us to play better at home," he said.

Other than the post-Super Bowl celebration at Giants Stadium in February, the team's fans have had little to celebrate there recently. New York lost its last four home games in 2007, the second straight season to end like that.

The Giants' last home win was a 33-15 decision over the San Francisco 49ers on Oct. 21.

"There is no reason, that is just how it was," middle linebacker Antonio Pierce said. "We just didn't finish games at home. That's what it comes down to. We didn't play well. We didn't play well in Buffalo for the first two quarters and came back and won. Here, we need to do that. We need to learn how to play 60 minutes of good football at home."

The problem is the Giants haven't been playing even 45 minutes of good football in recent home games.

Their best effort was in the regular-season finale against the Patriots, a 38-35 loss that might have shown the Giants that they could play with the best team in the league.

The other three home losses were not that close. Dallas was a 31-20 winner on Nov. 11. Minnesota won 41-17 on Nov. 25, and Washington had its way in a 22-10 win on Dec. 16.