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Former Giants coach Bill Parcells criticized the effort of coach Tom Coughlin's defense against the Seattle Seahawks. ((Evan Pinkus/Giants))

Former Giants coach Bill Parcells sounded a lot like the team's current coach Tom Coughlin when talking about the team's problems on defense this season on ESPN Radio with Michael Kay and Don LaGreca. The Giants defense is currently ranked worst in the league.

Parcells noted that it is particularly disappointing that the team has had so much trouble defending the run after some initial success at the beginning of the season.

"In the first five games of the year [the Giants] held their opponents to under 100 yards rushing on average," Parcells said. "But in the last four games, they’re rushing for over 200 on average. When you can’t stop the run in football the third down conversions get a lot easier, the team controls the ball and the game a lot more easily and you are at risk all the time on offense because you’re trying to catch up. It’s just something that’s very demoralizing to a team when you can’t stop the run in the NFL."

Parcells' remarks echo similar comments made on Friday by Coughlin, a former Parcells assistant coach, who said, "If you don’t stop the run, the signal that you’re sending about the physical nature of your play is not good enough."

Case in point is a play that Parcells pointed out to Kay and LaGreca from Sunday's game against the Seattle Seahawks. Without naming names, Parcells seemed to call out the lack of effort by cornerback Zack Bowman in stopping Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch trot into the end zone for his fourth touchdown.

"I saw one guy, I won’t say his name, because I don’t think I should be doing that, near the end of the game, Marshawn Lynch is going over the goal line and this guy had a chance at him [on Lynch's fourth TD] and this guy doesn’t take it," Parcells said. "That would bother me a great deal."

The lack of effort displayed on the field has been noticed by members of the team, including safety Antrel Rolle and defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul who separately called out their teammates for lacking heart. Parcells said that these comments are an indictment on the entire Giants organization, not just Coughlin and the coaching staff, but added that injuries have robbed the defense of a significant amount of their talent this season.

"There is a chance — and I’m getting around to this line of thinking, particularly defensively — that the Giants just don’t have enough players to play well," Parcells said. "I’m really at the point where, with the guys who have gotten hurt — Prince [Amukamara] got hurt there at the corner I think he was probably their best defensive back — they just look like they don’t have enough players to go around. They don’t get much pressure on the quarterback. They don’t stop the run. I just don’t think they’ve got enough right now to compete at a high level."

On the bright side, Parcells indicated that the Giants' upcoming opponent, the San Francisco 49ers, is lucky to have a record above .500 with the way that they have played this season, meaning the Giants might just have a chance of snapping their four-game losing streak.

"San Francisco, if not for a couple of miracle plays, they would be at 4-5, with realistically no chance to win their division and probably not much chance to finish second," he said. So, last week’s game just kept them above water. But don’t confuse this with the San Francisco teams of the past couple of years, because this team is not close to what that team used to be."

Should the Giants decide to part ways with Coughlin after this season, suffice to say you can scratch Parcells off the list of potential replacement. He did not sound too enthused about getting back into the grind of being an NFL coach.

"I don’t think I would have the energy. This life of going to the horse races looks like a lot of fun to me."

Nick Powell may be reached at npowell@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @nickpowellbkny. Find NJ.com Giants on Facebook.