Tom Coughlin's Giants were an, inconsistent, undsciplined mess, and had serious problems executing on both sides of the ball while losing 5 out of 6 games near the end of the 2011 season. It wasn't the first time in his career that he lost the hearts, minds and ears of his players. The Giants' HC made some major adjustments which the team in turn responded to on their way to beating the Pats (again) in the Superbowl.
Sorry, I may be mistaken, but I don't think that is accurate. Coughlin has always been a strict disciplinarian. As I remember the problems with the Giants is that he was too strict and too tough and players were rebelling. He eased off a little, they started winning and most of the players came around.
All things being equal, a younger team will tend to be less disciplined, and even, uh, play with less wisdom and experience, than an older team. Sure we all hear the arguments by Idzik Fans here why a younger team has advantages, with subtle considerations like lower salaries added to the obvious of faster and usually healthier. But we see one of the costs, and that is more penalties and less experience, leading from time to time to poor decisions.
