NEW YORK--The New York Giants held a players only meeting yesterday to address their shoddy play in Sunday night’s loss to the Tennessee Titans. The most common theme during the meeting was the desire of the veterans to restore accountability to the locker room. In fact, the word “accountability” was uttered a total of 342 times, according to punter Jeff Feagles, who was keeping score.

“342. That’s a lot,” said Feagles, who made a mark in his notebook each time the word was uttered. “I think the previous record was something like 273, and that was back when Jim Fassel was here. It just goes to show you how important accountability is to sports teams. Without it, everything would be chaos. I just wish we had thought of it earlier. We’d probably be undefeated by now.”

According to Feagles, the accountability orgy was kicked off by linebacker Antonio Pierce, who stood before the team and expressed the importance of each player being held accountable for his performance on the field.

“Fellas, it’s all about restoring accountability to each and every person in this locker room,” Pierce said. “We all have to be accountable: me, you, the coaches – everybody. Accountability is the key to winning Super Bowls. Accountability is the key to everything. It can cure cancer. It can solve world hunger. Accountability. Accountability. Accountability. I'm sorry I just like saying that.”

It was during Pierce’s speech that Feagles decided to keep track of the accountability’s.

“Antonio said it a total of 10 times during his talk,” Feagles said. “At that point I figured we were on pace for around 100, but things really started to pick up after that. Michael [Strahan] stood up and the first thing he said was ‘This is all about restoring accountability.’ For the next 20 minutes he delved into the nature of accountability and how important it is to a team’s success. Then a couple of our dork rookies raised their hands and asked questions about it, which upped the number even more. By the end of Strahan s’ speech we were all the way up to 50, and Mister Accountability, Tiki Barber, hadn’t even spoken yet.”

Barber proceeded to mention accountability a record 104 times during his speech. He was followed by Carlos Emmons, who uttered it 48 times. R.W. McQuarters then closed out the meeting by leading the team in an “accountability” chant which lasted 20 minutes and totaled 140 accountability’s.

After the meeting, Pierce said he felt that he and the veterans got their message across to the rest of the team.

“I think we made our point,” Pierce said. “We cleared the air a little, and we just told the guys we need to restore some accountability around here…damn, there’s that word again. It seems like I can’t open my mouth without saying it. None of us can. It’s probably not a good thing to keep repeating the same word over and over again so that people accountability – dammit! There I go again. I can’t control myself. Acc...okay I’ll just stop talking now.”

The Giants’ loss Sunday to the Titans left them with a 6-5 record and shaky playoff hopes. But coach Tom Coughlin remains optimistic that his team can turn it around, and he believes today’s meeting was a good start.

“There’s nothing like a players-only meeting to clear the air,” said Coughlin “It’s a great way for guys to get together away from the prying eyes of the coaches and really bond. I just hope they got to the heart of the matter and addressed the thing that’s really hurting us right now. You know, that one thing that we need to restore in order to get back on the winning track. I think you know what I’m talking about, right? Accountability? Hell, no. I’m talking about offense. Our offense blows. All the accountability in the world isn’t going to change that.”

Copyright 2006, The Brushback - Do not reprint without permission. This article is satire and is not intended as actual news.