Giants vs. Lions: Last-Minute Preview for "Monday Night Football" Opener

Turnovers. They're the bane of every football coach's existence and the trait that has come to define the New York Giants and Detroit Lions as they head into their season-opening game Monday night at Ford Field.

In 2013, the Giants led the NFL with 40 giveaways. One spot behind them—albeit miles behind them by NFL standards with 34—were the Lions.

Only the Texans and Jets had a worse turnover ratio, with theirs being more a product of their inability to take the ball away than a propensity for coughing it up.

Date	Time	Watch	Stream
Monday, Sept. 8	7:10 p.m. ET	ESPN	WatchESPN

The Giants and Lions' mental blunders resulted in matching 7-9 records that cost them eminently winnable divisions and the employment of longtime players and coaches alike.

The Lions fired head coach Jim Schwartz and his coaching staff after five seasons filled with equal parts promise and collapse.

Hired in his place was Jim Caldwell, the former Baltimore Ravens offensive coordinator and Indianapolis Colts head coach whose hiring was so monumental that half the readership just used Wikipedia to ensure I hadn't made a grave error.

Caldwell is handed the difficult task of not ruining what makes the Lions offense special while curing its ills.

Matthew Stafford has thrown for at least 4,600 yards and 20 touchdowns in each of the last three seasons but has matched that ascent with an ever-growing interception rate. He threw his most interceptions since his rookie season (19) in 2013, helping the Lions blow six fourth-quarter leads in their nine losses.

It was a microcosm of the Schwartz era. Always standing on the precipice of something good but lacking the mental wherewithal to make it happen.

The Caldwell hire hasn't inspired much faith outside the greater Detroit metro, but players have praised his preaching of accountability and equal treatment of all 53 players on the roster.

Bill Wippert/Associated Press

"If a fine is a fine for the 53rd man, it's the same fine for Calvin, and you have to respect that," cornerback Rashean Mathis told Kyle Meinke of MLive.com. "There's no wavering. The last man on the roster, or the first man on the roster. If you're late, you're late. You're going to get fined, and your name is going to get put on the board."

No one has ever accused Giants coach Tom Coughlin of lacking accountability. But after 10 seasons, two Super Bowl titles and three division championships, many accused him of lacking authority.

The Giants of 2013 were uncharacteristically undisciplined on both sides of the ball, making confounding mental errors that resulted in turnovers or big plays for the other team.

While Coughlin didn't share Schwartz's fate, his longtime second in command did. New York fired offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride and replaced his aggressive downfield passing attack with the West Coast stylings of Ben McAdoo.

McAdoo comes over after an eight-year stint as an offensive assistant in Green Bay, and he is basically tasked with reviving the career of quarterback Eli Manning.

John Minchillo/Associated Press

If one would categorize Stafford as "turnover-prone" last season, then Manning was a turnover plague. He spread the wealth around an NFL-high 27 times against a full-season low of 18 touchdowns.

His total QBR plummeted by more than 30 points from 2012 to 2013. According to Football Outsiders' DVOA, he was the 38th-best quarterback in the NFL last season, down from 13th a year prior.

On one hand, this makes Manning a natural candidate for the Plexiglass Principle. While he was never exactly careful with the football—2013 was his third season with 20-plus interceptions and his seventh with at least 15—a simple regression toward the mean would help him move back toward something resembling the league average.

The problem: Manning and the Giants' first-team offense has looked like a befuddled mess in McAdoo's system.

Playing behind an all-new offensive line, Manning was constantly under siege. He completed only 20 of 41 passes for 188 yards and a touchdown in the preseason. Pro Football Focus (subscription required) indicates he took five sacks on 46 dropbacks and completed 8.3 percent of his passes when pressured.

Those are miserable rates for an offense predicated on quick reads and short passing. Skepticism has run rampant as optimism for Manning wanes heading into 2014, though Coughlin recently noted there was one important thing missing from his stat line: turnovers.

The Giants were the only team in the preseason to now throw an interception.

Bill Kostroun/Associated Press

"The big thing happening in the preseason, which is not shocking, but the reason we won a couple games is because we didn't beat ourselves," Coughlin told reporters. "If you look at the numbers, you can see that. So that is something we can hang our hat on, regardless of what the statistics are."

Statistics are going to be meaningful against a Lions secondary that ranks among the worst in football. Hamstrung by salary-cap restraints—as shown by Spotrac—and the curious decision to draft tight end Eric Ebron in the first round, the Lions will start the 34-year-old Mathis and second-year player Darius Slay at cornerback.

Add the shaky back line of Glover Quin and James Ihedigbo, and the Lions have a secondary ripe for the picking.

Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press

Detroit brought in Champ Bailey last week for a workout and is expected to take a long look at the former All-Pro if Mathis and Slay fail to perform.

The Giants will offer a much tougher test to the new and improved Stafford, with offseason signing Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie joining Prince Amukamara to form a solid all-around core. Stafford has the security blanket of the NFL's best receiver in Calvin Johnson, but it'll be interesting to see how revamped the Lions quarterback looks against what could be a top-10 secondary.

Then again, skeptically is the only way one can look at either of these teams.

The Lions and Giants are one of seemingly a dozen teams with enough talent for a playoff spot. Having the likes of Stafford, Calvin Johnson and Ndamukong Suh on the same roster is an enviable problem. As is having the likes of Victor Cruz, Rodgers-Cromartie and Jason Pierre-Paul.

But it's the mental makeup of these rosters that will ultimately decide their fate. It's whether they can regress toward the league average in turnover rate. It's whether their coaching staff has actually reached them or if the quotes are run-of-the-mill preseason fodder.

The Giants and Lions could feasibly end up 11-5 or 5-11.

We'll get a good look at which way both are headed in Monday night.

Follow Tyler Conway on Twitter @tylerconway22.