The Rundown: How to lose a season in 194 seconds

I heard some team in the Bronx won their 27th championship or something. Really big deal, champagne everywhere, "Canyon of Heroes", all that good stuff.

But I also recall writing 15,000+ words on the Yankees in the last month. And I feel a leviathan of a season wrapup coming tomorrow. So let's take a moment to review the New York sports landscape as it will be for the next five months.

NEW YORK GIANTS: The difference between making the playoffs and not making the playoffs is the last 3:14 of Big Blue's gut-wrenching 21-20 loss to the Chargers on Sunday. The Giants' fourth loss in a row was worse than all the others because they dominated so many facets of the game and because of the way they lost.

When cornerback Terrell Thomas intercepted Philip Rivers and returned the pick to the San Diego four-yard line, the G-Men were on the verge of icing the game. They had their biggest of the season in their hands. And they (figuratively) dropped the ball.

Playoff teams put the ball in the end zone and make it a two-score game. The Giants didn't. Playoff teams stop opponents' do-or-die touchdown drives in the final two minutes. The Giants didn't. Playoff teams find a way to make that one game-ending play to put them over the top. The Giants didn't. It's that simple.

The blame extends from the players all the way across the coaching staff. When a costly holding penalty on first-and-goal pushed the offense back to the 14, Tom Coughlin took the ball out of Eli Manning's hands and played for the field goal. Wide receiver screen on first down for no gain. Inside handoff to Brandon Jacobs for 5 yards. Inside handoff to Brandon Jacobs for 5 yards.

No, I didn't black out and type the same sentence twice. The Giants' calls on second and third down were exactly the same, designed to force the Chargers to burn timeouts and predicated on the belief that Big Blue's D could keep Rivers and Co. out of the end zone. Coughlin put his faith in a defense that had allowed 24 points in the final two minutes of the first half in the preceding three games. In other words, a defense that clearly has issues stopping the two-minute drill.

When Rivers got the ball back, he sliced through the G-Men like a hot knife through butter (pardon the cliche, but that's how it was). First-year defensive coordinator Bill Sheridan repeatedly brought the blitz even though the Giants' best blitzing linebacker, Michael Boley, was hampered after reaggravating a meniscus injury in his right knee (for God's sake, he had hobbled off the field the drive before and was clearly not 100 percent). The blitzing exposed the Giants' overmatched secondary and led to consecutive big plays that took San Diego from the Giants' 39 to the end zone. On the touchdown pass, star receiver Vincent Jackson beat crotchety cornerback Corey Webster to the corner of the end zone even though Webster had safety help over the middle. Easy throw and catch, touchdown, game over.

The Giants won't be able to lose again this week -- they have a bye. Maybe two weeks off will give them time to figure things out before games against Atlanta (5-3) and Denver (7-1) in a five-day span.

NEW YORK YANKEES: Always love to see a good parade, so I thought I'd throw this gem from the New York Times' Tyler Kepner in here.

NEW YORK JETS: The Jets had the week off to contemplate how to turn a 4-4 start into a playoff berth, get Braylon Edwards more familiar with the playbook, and insert ligaments from a cadaver into Kris Jenkins' leg to get him back on the field. OK, I made one of those up. Seriously, though, they really, really miss Jenkins in the middle of that defensive line.

NEW YORK RANGERS: Whenever I go camping in the summer, a swarm of mosquitoes inevitably descends upon me and saps my energy bite by bite. Assorted injuries are doing the exact same thing to the Rangers. In Sunday's 3-1 loss to the Flames, the Blueshirts lost two centers -- captain Chris Drury to a concussion and Brandon Dubinsky to a broken hand. Starting goalie Henrik Lundqvist is still day-to-day with a "minor injury." And though offensive machine Marian Gaborik is healthy now, he missed two games after a collision in a game against the Phoenix Coyotes. It's hard to fault the Rangers for going 3-6-1 in their last 10 games -- they simply haven't been at full strength.

NEW YORK KNICKS: What can you say? The best thing about watching Knicks games is listening to Walt Frazier find new pairs of verbs that rhyme and be excited about it. Did you know no Knick player has 10+ assists in a game yet? How they beat New Orleans, I don't know. At least they have more wins than the Nets (1 to 0, but still).