Thanks for the Heart Attack, Giants

12 12 2011

Well, I just found something that pisses me off more than the Giants’ defense: WordPress . I came in fired up this morning and delivered a 1,300+ word column about how even though I was excited to come away from last night’s game with a win, there are still countless problems with the defense that need to be addressed before we can even think about the Giants as possible playoff contenders. Then, when I went to hit submit, POOF! All 1,300 words disappeared. Vanished like a fart in the wind, as Warden Norton would say.

“Okay, that’s fine,” I thought, “I’ll just go back and check the last automatically saved draft.” That sounded like a solid plan, until I checked the last saved revision and found that it, too, was completely blank. So, to make a long story short, I am now attempting to rehash everything I wrote in the last column that I spent almost two hours writing. Maybe I’ll tell a better story this time around because I’m consciously trying to cut straight to the point and eliminate all the fat.

Or maybe, because I’m so mad at WordPress for the events that just occurred, I’ll forget a bunch of the gems I included in my original draft and just resort to bullet points this time around for the sake of time. For example, I could list all the ways in which the Giants defense tried to give away the game (and the season) in the 4th quarter last night:

*Following Sean Lee’s interception of a tipped Eli Manning screen pass (hey Gilbride, how about we rip the page with “screen pass to D.J. Ware” out of the playbook from here on out? Sound good, buddy?), Dez Bryant got behind Corey Webster, the entire cast of Dallas and everybody sitting in the endzone seats at Cowboys Stadium for a 50-yard touchdown catch. It was a break-down in coverage that was “Look away from your TV”-level embarrassing.

That play made it 34-22 Dallas with under six minutes to play, and at that point I was convinced that the Giants’ season was over. The funeral dirge was playing and the Giants’ season was suspended over a freshly dug grave about be lowered into the ground. That was it. And at that moment I was getting ready to throw the towel in on the 2011 NFL season, and I’m sure every Giants fan would have agreed with me. After all, we’ve already seen a handful of remarkable and improbably 4th quarter comebacks this season, but 12 points down with under six minutes left? Let’s just say I wasn’t expecting too much.

*Of course, not only did Eli Manning refuse to throw in the towel, but he then proceeded to twist the towel up really tight and whip the Cowboys defense into submission. Rob Ryan paced the sidelines like a scowling, pregnant Rex Ryan clone as Eli marched the Giants down the field in six plays before finding Ballard in the end zone to cut the lead to 34-29 with 3:14 to go.

With 2:25 to go and the Cowboys facing a 3rd-and-5 from their own 25 yard line, the game came down to one play for the Giants defense. A first down by Dallas would almost guarantee victory and a stop by Big Blue meant that Eli would get the ball back with a chance to complete the comeback. Of course, knowing that the ultimate weakness of the Giants defense is stopping 3rd down plays of between 5 and 10 yards, Jason Garrett chose to go for the jugular and send Miles Austin on a go-route down the near sideline. Austin was working on Aaron Ross in single coverage, and of course Ross got absolutely torched by Austin like you read about. Just flat-out lost. Suddenly, Romo spots a wide-open Miles Austin streaking towards the sideline with nothing but green FieldTurf in front of him. If Romo makes the throw, it’s 41-29 Cowboys a few seconds later and the Giants’ season is as dead as a door nail. This morning, the story would be about how the Giants defense came up flat again and got torched for 41 points and couldn’t come up big when it had to.

But what happens? Of course Romo overthrows Austin by a hair because he’s Romo. The Cowboys are forced to punt with 2:20 and the Giants dodge a bullet the size of Cowboys Stadium. Now, all is forgiven because we know the outcome of the game. But all is not forgotten. That play stuck in my mind all night, and as Mat McBriar trotted out onto the field to punt the ball back to the Giants, Bob Papa summed up the situation pretty perfectly when he asked Carl Banks, “Did the Giants defense just stop the Cowboys, or did the Cowboys just stop themselves?” I’m going to go with the latter.

*So that was instance #2 of the Giants defense trying to give the game away. Let’s fast forward through yet another heroic Eli Manning drive, leading the Giants down the Dallas 1-yard line after passes of 21 and 18 yards to Jake Ballard. Let’s fast forward through the game-winning touchdown run by Brandon Jacobs and the ensuing two-point conversion run by D.J. Ware (yup, same play that they ran against Green Bay last week) and let’s get to the :46 seconds of deja vu that came with the Giants up 37-34.

The Cowboys offense, with no timeouts remaining, was able to effortlessly glide into field goal range, leaving the game in Dan Bailey’s hands with :09 left. Two big passes from Romo to Austin of 22 and 23 yards, respectively, set up what should have been the game-tying field goal. Once again, the Giants defense was primed to let another valiant comeback by Eli Manning slip away because they couldn’t make one stop when they needed to. If Coughlin doesn’t call that time-out and Bailey’s game-tying kick sails through the uprights, it’s an entirely different story today. Instead, the defense gets bailed out yet again.

Only this time, it was one of their own that came through. Jason Pierre-Paul single-handedly (get it, because he blocked the kick with one hand?) saved the game and the Giants’ season, and not only with that blocked kick. His safety in the first quarter gave the Giants 2 points that ultimately proved to be the difference in the game.

*Here’s the bottom line: The Giants won, the Giants are now in first place, every one in Giants Nation is happy today. That is all true. But what’s also true is that the Giants defense failed to show up yet again last night and despite the win and the larger-than-life effort of JPP, there are still a ton of problems that need to be addressed on the defensive side of the football. Last night’s win was a good start, and a step in the right direction. But the Giants are basically in their own version of the playoffs from here on out and they are going to have to handle their business once again at home against Dallas on New Year’s Day. If the defense doesn’t fix the problems that are currently plaguing them, they might not get bailed out again.


Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: , , , , , , ,
Categories : Sports

Here we go again…

21 11 2011

I don’t want to focus on one drive because the Giants’ play was so maddeningly uneven last night that it would be unfair to single out one specific series. But, this particular drive was so problematic, so typical of the Giants recent late-season struggles, that it really sort of embodies everything that is wrong with the 2011 New York Giants. And the 2010 New York Giants. Probably the 2009 New York Giants too.

At the 11:36 mark in the 4th quarter, after the Giants had just tied up the game at 10-10 on a 24-yard touchdown pass where Victor Cruz burned Nnamdi Asomugha for the second time in as many games this season, the Giants seemingly had the Eagles exactly where they wanted them. The 4th quarter hasn’t been kind to the Eagles this season, and after being in control for almost the entire game, one would imagine that this touchdown would have sent the Birds spiraling towards other blown 4th quarter lead. At least it seemed that way.

What happened next was an inexplicable 18-play drive that drained almost 9 minutes from the clock and was about as painful to watch as anything I’ve seen from the Giants since that afternoon at the Meadowlands 11 months ago. Out of the 18 plays on this Philadelphia drive, 6 of them were 3rd down plays. Of course, the Vince Young-led Eagles offense converted all 6 of these 3rd downs almost effortlessly, the last one being a 3rd and goal from the 8-yard-line, where Young found Riley Cooper in the back of the end zone for the game-winning touchdown. Yes, the same Riley Cooper that had a grand total of 0 catches in the 2011 season coming into last night’s game.

That he ended up supplying the dagger in our hearts was not the most maddening part of that series though. The most frustrating thing about the 18-play march was the way in which the Eagles converted 3rd downs of 3, 10, 3, 1, 4 and 8 yards. On each of these 3rd down plays, the pass-rush was virtually non-existent.

Vince Young was able to sit back in the pocket and calmly sling passes over the middle to a fully-exposed area of the field that was being continuously exploited due to the inexperience of the Giants rookie linebackers. Herzlich and Paysinger played well at times last night, but they seemed to spend most of the game getting caught in no man’s land and leaving the middle of the field wide open for the likes of Brent Celek, Riley Cooper and Jason Avant to sit down in coverage and make uncontested catches. And without so much as a hint of a pass rush all night, Young was able to easily make these plays when he had to.

Early on in the night Young looked rusty, which was no surprise. He hadn’t started a game in over a year and hadn’t even practiced with the team until this past week. But after realizing that the Giants weren’t even going to attempt to put pressure on him, he began to settle into a groove. When it comes down to it, Vince Young is still an NFL quarterback, and if you give any NFL quarterback time to throw with no pressure and a trio of rookie linebackers leaving the middle of the field as exposed as it was, he is going to make plays — and he did.

I had a lot of problems with the New York Giants last night, and honestly, that 18-play drive was only the tip of the iceberg. As frustrating as it was to finally win the momentum back by tying the game, only to watch the Eagles march right back up the field on a drive that we had the chance to stop six different times, there were so many other things that frustrated me about last night.

For starters, changes have to be made in the running game. Last night’s performance by Brandon Jacobs was absolutely embarrassing. After the game, Tom Coughlin was quoted as saying their run game was “as pathetic as it gets” and he couldn’t have been more right.

Gaining 21 yards on 12 carries is inexplicable, especially against a weak run defense like Philadelphia’s that has been exposed numerous times this season. As bad as that stat line is, it’s even more misleading than it looks: Jacobs’ long run of the night was a 9-yard carry, meaning that 9 of his 21 yards came on one play. That means that aside from that one run, he gained 12 yards on 11 carries. That’s not New York Giants football. In fact, that’s not even professional football. That’s laughable.

I’m aware that some of the blame for the failure of the running game must be placed on the offensive line. For the most part, the offensive line has done a pretty good job this year of protecting Eli and giving him enough time to throw. However, last night they failed. Eli was constantly under duress, even though the Eagles were sending only four down linemen for most of the night. The fact of the matter is that Jacobs no longer has the explosive I’m-going-to-run-you-over energy that he used to have. There are a lot of changes that need to be made with this team, and they have to start with the running game. If that means that Jacobs and Bradshaw have to go, then so be it. I hope to see more carries from D.J. Ware and Da’Rel Scott going forward, but you know that’s not going to happen.

What else frustrated me last night, besides the 18-play drive, the lack of a pass rush and the slow, painful death of our running game? How about the DeSean Jackson punt return late in the first half that gave every Giants fan watching the game Vietnam flashbacks of December 19, 2010. I’ll ask it again, because it seems like nobody in the Giants organization has an answer to this question: WHY DO WE KEEP PUNTING THE FOOTBALL TO DESEAN JACKSON? I mean, Steve Weatherford might have had the game of his life last night, but that still doesn’t excuse him from trying to pull a Matt Dodge and giving Jackson opportunities to make us look stupid. Why do it? Without that punt return, it’s unlikely that the touchdown pass to Steve Smith (really? Steve Smith?) even happens and it’s probably 3-3 at the half instead of 10-3. That was such an unnecessary, stupid, STUPID decision that I wasn’t even completely sure it was happening while it was happening.

I’m not done yet though. How about we discuss the Giants once again relying on Eli Manning’s late-game heroics to save them? Listen, I know that for five of our six wins this season we’ve come from behind in the 4th quarter and that Eli has proved that he can bring us back time after time, but we can’t keep putting everything on his shoulders. For the second straight week, we played inconsistent, incomplete games and when the 4th quarter rolled around, we put everything in Eli’s hands and basically said “you can take it from here.”

Like we saw against San Francisco and again last night, he’s not going to save us every week. He’s not immortal, and he’s not Tim Tebow. Watching him complete a beautiful 47-yard pass to Victor Cruz and then getting mauled from the blindside and fumbling the game away on the very next play is about as maddening as it gets — but it should have never even come down to that. It should have never even come down to that because the fact of the matter is that we should have gained more than 29 yards on the ground. We should have picked up more than 10 first downs. We should have played a complete 60 minutes of football instead of believing that Eli would clean up the mess for us in the 4th quarter again.

After 1,200 words, I’m finally going to get to the point of this article. Here it is: we’re not making the playoffs this season. In fact, I’d be surprised if we finished better than 8-8. My last column was a few weeks ago now, and I wrote it before the inspiring win in New England gave us all the confidence that maybe we had something special in this 2011 Giants team. In that column I questioned whether this Giants team had the heart to avoid yet another late-season collapse. After beating the Patriots, I thought we did. But after these last two weeks, I know that we don’t. This team is no different from the team that melted down the stretch in 2009 and they’re no different from the team that blew a 31-10 lead at the Meadowlands last December 19th. This team has no heart and no fire, and they are in dire need of a regime change.

I don’t care how much the players like playing for Tom Coughlin, the fact is that he no longer knows how to coach this football team and the countless stupid penalties and lack of preparation for big games is more than enough evidence. The fact that this team continually comes out flat against weaker opponents is a hallmark of poor coaching and poor preparation and that all has to be placed on Tom Coughlin. I love the guy, and I love all that he’s done for this franchise over the last 8 years, but he can’t coach this team anymore.

The same goes for Kevin Gilbride. His play-calling has been atrocious, not only last night, but all season. His unrelenting desire to continue running the football when we clearly have no running game is frustrating beyond all belief, and there are times when his play-calling is so head-scratchingly bad that I’m not sure he even knows what football is.

I hate to say it as a Giants fan, but this team is in the midst of yet another late-season swoon and these demons will not be exorcised until this entire coaching staff is gone and we can start from scratch. I know that the Giants are historically good at preparing for good teams and showing up to play against the best of the best, but the way this team looked last night I can’t realistically sit here and see them having a shot at beating New Orleans or Green Bay. Of course this statement means nothing coming from me because we all know how unpredictable this league tends to be, but it would not go against my better judgment to say that we will likely be 6-6 going into our Week 14 game against Dallas. With the Cowboys’ next two games coming against Miami and Arizona, it’s conceivable to think that we might be two games out of first place by the time we face them, on a Sunday night in Dallas on December 11th. At that point, a loss to Dallas would almost certainly end our season.

Will it happen exactly like that? Probably not. But the fact that the scenario I just outlined above is a real possibility is just as absurd, given the position we were in a few weeks ago, with a record of 6-2 and coming off of a huge win in Foxborough.

This entire team is absurd though, and I’ve come to realize this over the last few seasons, along with every other sane and rational member of Big Blue Nation. The good grace that Super Bowl XLII brought about expired the moment DeSean Jackson crossed that goal line last December, and now, on the verge of our fourth late-season collapse in as many years, we have to start wondering where we go from here. The script for the 2011 season has already been written several times — now we have to see if the Giants are going to follow it.


Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: , , , , , , ,
Categories : Sports

“Jet Blue” Offense Takes Off in Big D

26 10 2010
New York Giants Hakeem Nicks runs up the sidelines against the Dallas Cowboys during the first half in Cowboys Stadium October 25, 2010 in Arlington, Texas. UPI/Ian Halperin Photo via Newscom

This is shaping up to be one of the wackiest NFL seasons I have ever seen. Don’t believe me? Check out the standings through Week 7. As of today, the Tennessee Titans (5-2), the Kansas City Chiefs (4-2), the Chicago Bears (4-3) and the Seattle Seahawks (4-2) are in first place in their respective divisions. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers (4-2) are a half-game behind Atlanta in the NFC South. The combined record of all of these teams in 2009: 27-53.

Still don’t believe me? Okay, well consider the fact that even though we are almost at the halfway point of this NFL season, we really don’t have a single team that would be considered a clear-cut favorite in the NFC. Nobody. If I had a gun to my head and I was forced to pick two teams, if I absolutely HAD to, I would probably have to go with the Giants and the Falcons – but I’m still reluctant to say that. The combined 2009 record of both of these teams: 15-17.

To expound on that, let’s look at the current state of last year’s final four teams in the NFC – the Cowboys, Vikings, Saints and Cardinals. As of today, the combined record of those four teams is…10-15 (note that Dallas and Minnesota are responsible for skewing this stat with 9 of those 15 losses – the Saints and Cards are still .500 or better, but for the purposes of making my point, I had to lump them all together).

Basically, what I’m trying to say is really something that we already knew – in the National Football League, ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE. That is why it is so hard to predict what is going to happen in this league from one week to the next, much less predict what is going to happen an entire season in advance. Just look at the Cowboys. Anybody with a functioning brain pegged the Cowboys as one of the clear favorites to represent the NFC  in the Super Bowl this year and today, on October 26th, they are 1-5 and looking at 6-8 weeks of Jon Kitna as their starting quarterback. In other words, they’d be lucky to escape this season with more than 4 wins. The Saints just got throttled at home by the Cleveland Browns. Heck, the Oakland Raiders put up 59 points in one game. That is roughly 30% of the total amount of points they scored all of last season. In 16 games. That’s right, I did the math.

Last night’s Giants game was like a microcosm of this strange and unpredictable NFL season. For example, last night I almost shut off the TV 3 times in the first quarter! That was only one time shy of this season’s record of 4 times that I almost shut of the TV in the first quarter during the Week 2 game at Indianapolis. Only thing is, we won last night! And not only did we win but we scored 41 points. Yeah crazy, I know.

I honestly can’t remember the last game I watched where a team turned the ball over 5 times in one game (a -3 turnover margin) and managed to win that same game. With 41 points. I can’t remember the last game I watched where a team fell behind 20-7 in the 2nd quarter on the road, turned the ball over 3 times, had absolutely zero momentum, and then 8 minutes later carry a 24-20 lead into the locker room at halftime.

I have never been on an emotional roller coaster ride through only one half of football like the one I experience last night. I went from being optimistic to convinced the game was a rehash of Week 2 against Indy (at 10-0), back to being optimistic again (at 10-7), then even more optimistic (Romo’s injury), then on the verge of throwing the remote through the TV screen (at 20-7), and back to optimistic again at halftime. All of that happened in the course of 30 minutes of football. That is six very drastic changes in emotion in a 2 hour span.

And then, when we began the second half, as Ron Burgundy would say, things escalated pretty quickly. Manning found Manningham for a 25-yard score, Jacobs rumbled in from 30 yards out, and before you could even say “fractured clavicle”, it was 38-20. And I’m pretty sure Brick killed a guy with a trident somewhere along the way. This sudden outburst of 31 unanswered points could be attributed to the fact that the Cowboys either, a) simply had no clue how to cover any of our wide receivers (especially Hakeem Nicks) or b) just didn’t want to cover them anymore. It could also be attributed to the fact that Jon Kitna hadn’t played a single down in the NFL in 2 years and was over-throwing every receiver by at least 20 yards. I mean, I’m pretty sure that he threw one third-down pass to Miles Austin that he couldn’t have caught if he was standing on the top step of one of those 25-foot ladders the WWE uses in ladder matches.

The final score (41-35 for those of you who actually followed through on their threat to turn the game off early and then slept through most of today) made the game seem a lot closer than it actually was. I was never once afraid that the Cowboys would come back at any point in the 4th quarter, mostly because I knew the Giants defense had eased off the throttle a little bit and also because I knew that there was no way Jon Kitna was going to pull a Brett Favre on us. Would I have liked the Giants to show a little bit more of a “killer instinct” late in the game and blitz Kitna into oblivion until the final gun? Yes, but it didn’t happen. It’s something we’ll have to work on during our bye week.

For now though, I’d be a liar if I didn’t say that I’m pretty damn content with where our New York Football Giants stand. At 5-2, we now hold sole possession of first place in the NFC East, a spot that we cannot relinquish even during our bye next week. We currently have the #2 total defense in the NFL in yards allowed, as well as the #2 total offense in the NFL in yards gained (at one point during last night’s game, we had 407 total yards to only 78 for Dallas). This stat doesn’t mean a whole lot right now, because the #1 team in both of those categories is the San Diego Chargers and they’re 2-5, still it’s nice to know. Eli Manning is tied for the league-lead in touchdown passes with 14 and is fifth in the league in completion percentage at 65.7. Ahmad Bradshaw leads the NFL in rushing yards with 708, ahead of both Adrian Peterson and Chris Johnson, and Hakeem Nicks is tied for the league-lead in touchdown catches with 8.

As great as all of those numbers are though, the only one that matters right now is the one in the column with the “W” on top. Wins. As long as we can keep adding to that number, we’ll be fine. For now though, we’ll take it one week at a time.

 

*Giants Fact of the Week*: The Giants have started the season 5-2 or better every year since 2004.


Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Categories : Sports

One For the Ages

30 12 2009
Carolina Panthers v New York Giants

Last week was a busy week for two reasons: Christmas. Shopping. For those reasons, I couldn’t turn out a column after last Monday night’s 45-12 throttling of the Washington Redskins on Monday Night Football. Had I written something, I likely would have gushed about how good the offense and the defense looked and how I could see this season turning around. I may have even written about how I thought this team might make a pretty surprising run in the playoffs and how I thought that there were a lot of similarities to the 2007 team that won the Super Bowl. I probably would have written all of those things, and a lot more. Then, after Sunday’s game, I would have looked back at last week’s column and been very embarrassed. I would have been almost as embarrassed as the Giants were by the Carolina Panthers Sunday afternoon in the last game they will ever play at Giants Stadium, their home for the last 34 years and 283 games.

A few weeks ago, after the wild Sunday night shootout against the Eagles, I wrote that I would not be disappointed if that was the last game I would ever watch in Giants Stadium. Then I got greedy. I knew I just had to be there on Sunday, I had to be there for the last hurrah, when the curtain came down on the place that I have grown to love over the last 15 years. Now, my final memory of Giants Stadium is going to be the Giants getting spanked by a team that had absolutely nothing to play for, on a day that we had everything to play for. It’s going to be a memory of our defense getting torched for 206 yards by a second-string running back (mind you, I know Stewart can be a starter on just about any other team in the league) and for 3 touchdowns by a second-string quarterback. It’s going to be a memory of Brandon Jacobs getting mercilessly booed as he walked off the field and towards the locker room with about 8 minutes to go and the Giants down 41-9. Were the boo’s warranted? Certainly. Jacobs racked up a whopping 1 yard on 6 carries. The workhorse who helped carry the Giants to a Super Bowl title 2 years ago, now looks like he has suddenly aged a decade. His explosiveness has all but disappeared, he no longer puts his shoulder down and runs over defenders and for the most part, he looks like he is running with ankle weights on. He has not crossed the 100-yard mark once all season, he only has 5 touchdowns (one-third of his total from last season) and unless he has a monster game against Minnesota next week, he will fall short of 1,000 yards for the first time since 2006, when he was Tiki Barber’s backup.

Needless to say, the lackluster running game has been the root of several of the Giants problems this season, but not all of them. Not in the least. It certainly hasn’t affected the passing game. Manning has had no problems finding the open receiver this season (you know, when they actually decide to catch the ball) and he is having, by far, the best statistical season of his career. His 27 touchdown passes are a career high and he will likely pass the 4,000 yard mark next week, making him only the third Giants quarterback to do so in franchise history. He needs a little over 200 yards to set the Giants all-time single season mark currently held by Kerry Collins who set it in 2002.

What the lack of a run game has done to the Giants this season is fail to establish a rhythm that has been so vital to our offense in the past few seasons. Being able to balance a successful passing game with a steady running game is the key to success in the National Football League, and the Giants just couldn’t find that balance for most of this season. Not enough big runs from Jacobs and Bradshaw to jump start a scoring drive and not enough big plays to galvanize the team and give the offense some momentum when the team sorely needs it.

I’m not going to say much about Sunday’s game, mostly because there really isn’t anything to say about it. It was the epitome of all that has gone wrong for the Giants this season. The defense failed to make big plays when they needed to. It seemed like last week’s defensive game plan, which worked so well against Jason Campbell and the Redskins, was not replicated on Sunday, as the Giants only sacked Matt Moore once, on the Panthers first offensive play from scrimmage. If you take a few steps back, Sunday’s game was quite simple to understand, mostly because it happened so quickly. The Giants opening drive, which ate up almost 8 minutes of the clock, looked almost exactly like their opening drive in Washington last week. When Manningham fumbled on the Carolina 17 yard line after converting a huge 3rd down, the momentum that the Giants had seemingly tried to build up with that march slipped away, and from that point on it looked as if the Giants were going through the motions. One of the amazing things about football is that entire outcome of a single game can be changed by a single play. It is often the littlest things that can swing the momentum and which can either bury a team or give them a second life. On Sunday, the Giants were buried early. Perhaps even before the fans knew it, and certainly before the players knew it, proving that anything is possible on any given Sunday.

Carolina Panthers v New York Giants

Was it tough to head out to Giants Stadium for one final Sunday, hoping for a heroic, season-saving effort from the Giants and a final push for the playoffs, only to see one of the worst performances in the stadium’s history? Yes, it was admittedly difficult. However, there was a sort of poetic beauty in being able to witness Sunday’s game. Everything served as a type of closure, from the boo’s, to the guy over in section 319 who threw all of his food at the field when the Giants fell behind 24-0 at halftime. I’ll be the first to admit that with all the games I’ve seen at Giants Stadium over the years, I’ve been pretty lucky. I’ve seen a lot of good games, and even a handful of great games, but I haven’t witnessed to many stinkers like the one I saw on Sunday. Actually, it’s safe to say that Sunday’s game was the worst I have ever attended at Giants Stadium, or anywhere else for that matter. So bad that I probably will have to amend the column that I wrote a few months ago detailing the top 5 worst games of the Eli Manning Era to include it. When you look at it that way, it even begins to make some kind of sense. Maybe not fully, and not yet, but in time I’m sure I’ll see it for what it is.

On Sunday, Big Blue will travel to Minnesota to take on Brett Favre and the Vikings. The Vikes have already clinched a playoff spot, which is lucky for them considering the nosedive they’ve been locked in since the beginning of the month. They’ve dropped 3 of their last 4 games, including a gut-wrenching 36-30 overtime loss to the Bears on Monday night. The 11-4 Vikings suddenly have something to play for, as a loss by them and an Eagles win over Dallas would drop Minnesota down to the 3rd seed in the NFC, giving the Eagles the coveted first-round bye. As for the Giants, it’s a much different story. By Week 5, many Giants fans looked at this game on the schedule anticipating that it wouldn’t mean anything, much like last year’s Week 17 matchup against the Vikings. After all, we were 5-0, and most of us thought that we would have our playoff position readily secured by now. Well, it turns out that we were half-right, as Heatmiser would say. The game means about as much as an exhibition game to the Giants, but not for reasons that we had anticipated back when we were 5-0. The Giants will miss the playoffs this year for the first time since I was a senior in high school and I still believed that prom would be just like American Pie, only in real life. Instead, we will try to play spoiler and help out the Eagles, because after all,  they’ve helped us out so much this season (outscoring us 85-55 in two games). It’s the least we could do. To be perfectly honest with you, I’d much rather see the Eagles win the NFC than the Cowboys, a team we beat twice. It would hurt much less to know that the team that caused us the most torment this season turned out to be the second best team in the NFC.

With The Minnesota game being played on January 3rd, this past Sunday’s game against Carolina served not only as the last game at Giants Stadium, but also the last game of the decade. Although the decade ended on a bitter note for Big Blue, nobody can deny that it was one hell of a decade to be a Giants fan. With two Super Bowl appearances, one Super Bowl title, 3 division titles and 6 playoff appearances, it was arguably one of the most successful decades in Giants history, and I’m proud to have been a part of it. As we say goodbye to another decade and welcome in 2010 in just a few days, here’s to hoping that 2010-2019 will be even better for the New York Football Giants. Who knows, maybe it will even start with a win on Sunday.


Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories : Uncategorized

Shootout!

16 12 2009

‘Tis the season for giving, and the Giants were in the holiday spirit on Sunday night. They gave and they gave and they gave to the Eagles until their little hearts could give no more. If Sunday night’s shootout between the Giants and Eagles ends up being the last game I ever watch inside Giants Stadium, the only way I can picture it being any better is if the Giants came out on the winning end of that 45-38 circus that I witnessed from section 128, row 31. Before I talk about the game and why it turned out the way that it did, let me get a few things out of the way first. I go to a pretty fair amount of Giants games, I’d say around 4 or 5 each year. Never, ever have I been to a game that was as much of an emotional see-saw as Sunday night’s game. Even last year’s Sunday night finale against the Panthers for home field advantage in the NFC, when we overcame a 21-10 deficit to win 34-28 in overtime, could match it. From the opening drive of the game, you could immediately tell that it was going to be a unique night. There are a few reasons why this was evident:

1) It was a Sunday night game. Even though it was raining all day leading up to the game (luckily the rain subsided about an hour before kickoff) Giants fans were out tailgating in full force from about 3 in the afternoon, proving that not even the most miserable weather can stop people from drinking outside in a parking lot for 5 hours. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: night games are a very different animal. Everyone is at least 30 times more rowdy and loud and obnoxious and innocent taunts are about 100,000 times more likely to quickly escalate to full-blown fist fights. Night games are special, night games are dangerous.

2) Combine the fact that it was a night game with the fact that it was a divisional game against the hated rival Eagles, and it’s like mixing Mentos with Diet Coke. It goes without saying that there is no love lost between New York and Philadelphia. If anything, the rivalry between the two cities has escalated ten-fold since the World Series. We hate each other, and we’re not afraid to let it show. About 80,000 people let it show on Sunday night.

3) To top it all off, this game was for first place in the NFC East. With the Cowboys losing to San Diego earlier in the day, the winner of Sunday night’s game would take over first place in the division. Although a Giants win would have pulled them into a three-way tie with the Eagles and Cowboys at 8-5, they would have held the tiebreaker over both teams (winning head-to-head both times against Dallas and having a better division record than Philly). Needless to say, this was an extremely important game and everyone in that stadium the other night was fully aware of it.

So, as I was saying, we could all feel that this was going to be a special night. I was positive that it was, at least until McNabb marched the Eagles down the field on the opening drive like he was playing against the practice squad. After Brent Celek turned his 92nd catch of the drive into a touchdown and it was 7-0, I was more than a little apprehensive. When Brandon Jacobs coughed up the ball at the Eagles’ 44-yard line on the ensuing possession and Sheldon Brown ran it back 60 yards for the touchdown to make it 14-0 with less than 6 minutes gone by, the only thing I could think of was November 1st.

Giants vs. Eagles

Like I said though, this was not going to be just another ordinary game. Sure enough, the Giants answered, and after an electrifying 68 yard touchdown pass from Manning to Hakeem Nicks (a play that came after Nicks dropped two consecutive passes and was bailed out both times by a pass interference call on Eagles corner Quentin Mikell) the Giants cut the Philadelphia lead to 14-10. The game would continue like this for pretty much the rest of its duration. Just when it looked like the Eagles had extended their lead for good, Eli would lead Big Blue right back into the game. The momentum was passed back and forth more times than Snookie on an episode of Jersey Shore.

When the Giants finally took the lead in the middle of the third quarter on a 61 yard touchdown pass to Domenik Hixon, Giants Stadium erupted in a way that I haven’t seen in a long time. The play started out as short pass that Hixon turned into the second big play of the game for the Giants, when he broke several tackles en route to his second electrifying touchdown in as many weeks. When Lawrence Tynes’ extra point sailed through the uprights in the east end zone to give us a 31-30 lead, the place went bonkers. In fact, if you didn’t know any better you would think that Oprah just gave every single person in the stadium a new car. There was the whole deal: awkward man hugs, way too many high-fives, my brother slumped in his seat like he was just assassinated, and far too many old men dancing to Notorious B.I.G. So basically, it was everything I love about football.

A few commercials and a kickoff later, and McNabb found DeSean Jackson for a 60 yard touchdown pass that looked so easy I could have sworn that the play was blown dead and I just hadn’t heard the whistle. No such luck. Eagles 37, Giants 31. I haven’t gone from utterly ecstatic to utterly devastated that quickly since that one Christmas morning 15 years ago when I found a letter from Santa on the dining room table and then realized that his handwriting was exactly the same as my mom’s.

The rest is history. Leonard Weaver from 1 yard out to make it 45-31. The Giants add the obligatory late game touchdown to pull within 7, followed by the obligatory onside kick attempt and the inevitable kick that goes out of bounds. Game, set and match, Giants are in third place. So how did we get to that point, and what is there to look forward to as we head into the home stretch of this anything-but-ordinary 2009 season? I’m glad you asked. Let’s hear the bad news first, and then the good news, since that’s the way I like to do it and this is my column.

The Negatives

- Too many dropped passes. There were drops on Sunday night and then there were drops. You know, the kind of drops where your only reaction is to put both of your hands on top of your head and remark more than once about how you “can’t believe it”. I can’t even tell you how many times this happened on Sunday night. Hakeem Nicks did it. Mario Manningham did it. Heck, even Michael Boley dropped an interception that would have been a sure touchdown in the third quarter. Fortunately, Nicks was bailed out by Quentin Mikell three times on one drive (two pass interference calls and one awful missed tackle on his touchdown), but for the most part the Giants receivers were catching like they were wearing boxing gloves on Sunday night. It got so bad that I was waiting for someone to come out with glue on their hands like the kid from Little Giants.

Philadelphia Eagles Donovan McNabb reacts after a touchdown in the fourth quarter against the New York Giants at Giants Stadium

- Missed tackles. The tackling also could not get any worse. Our linebackers and secondary dove at Eagles receivers like they were trying to pull a flag out of their pants, not make an actual tackle. On his 72 yard punt return in the second quarter that give Philly a 24-10 lead, DeSean Jackson actually ran backwards for a few steps to avoid tacklers before accelerating down the near sideline. He backpeddled, changed direction, and still managed to avoid even being touched. Enough said.

- The secondary. Listen, I could fill up a whole 3,000 word column about the Giants secondary, so I’ll save my time (and yours) by saying that everytime McNabb took a seven-step drop and threw the ball downfield, my hands went right to the top of my head as if I knew that someone in a white and green jersey was going to be wide open. Almost 90% of the time, I was exactly right. The worst of this was the aforementioned backbreaking touchdown pass to Jackson. Almost as bad as that: on a 3rd and 20 on the final drive of the first half, with the Giants trailing 24-17 and trying to hang within a score heading into halftime, McNabb found Jackson for a 44 yard gain in the middle of the field to the Giants’ 24 that led to Michael Vick’s 1 yard touchdown run and a 30-17 lead. There is no way that NFL receivers should be that wide open that often. Yet somehow, it happened on Sunday night.

The Positives

- Eli Manning. He did everything he had to do to win. You could not possibly ask of anything else from a quarterback. He put 38 points on the board. In the NFL, when you score 38 points and outgain your opponent 512-374, you’re supposed to win the game. His defense let him down, and that’s it. His numbers (27/38, 391 yards, 3 TDs) marked a career-high in passing yards, breaking the mark he set a few weeks ago against Atlanta, and prove that he kept the Giants in the game and gave them a chance to win up to the very last moment. That’s all you can ask of him.

- Run defense. Although we got absolutely shredded through the air, we held the Eagles backs to only 77 yards on the ground. Furthermore, Jacobs and Bradshaw combined for 133 yards on the ground. Even if it’s not the best we’ve seen from the two, they both picked up a few big first downs and did what they had to do to open up the passing lanes for Manning.

- The future. With three games left in the 2009 season and a 7-6 record, one would assume that the future is looking bleak for Big Blue. However, we know better than to count anyone out yet. After all, this is the NFL. With the Giants only one game behind the Cowboys, it is more than possible for us to sneak past Dallas in the final weeks to grab the final wild card spot in the NFC. The Cowboys will play the Saints, Redskins and Eagles in their final three games, starting Saturday night in New Orleans, and we all know that there is no such thing as a sure thing for the Dallas Cowboys in the month of December. Even the Redskins will be a test for Dallas. Two losses for the Cowboys in the their next three and two wins for the Giants will give us a playoff birth at 9-7. The Giants last three opponents: Washington, Carolina and Minnesota.

Clearly the playoffs are not yet out of the question. So the question is, can we start covering some receivers?


Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories : Uncategorized

They Might Be Giants

7 12 2009

Well, I’m back. I was out of commission this past week, battling a particularly ornery case of the swine flu. Apparently, the Giants are back too. Yes that’s right, that football team from New York that’s been locked in a nosedive since early October (no, not that New York football team) wants to play with the big boys again.

Yesterday, the Giants improved to 3-1 in the NFC East with a somewhat-convincing 31-24 win over the hated Dallas Cowboys. With the win, the Giants captured their first season sweep of the Cowboys since 2004 and most importantly, capture a little bit of the momentum that has eluded them as of late. The win pushes the 7-5 Giants to within one game of the division lead, behind the Cowboys and Eagles, both 8-4.

Looking at the box score from yesterday’s game, you would most likely find it hard to believe that the Giants won the game rather decisively. But as we all know, in football more than any other sport, who wins and who loses goes far beyond what you read in the stat sheet. After all, the Giants were topped in every single statistical category except for rushing yards yesterday (they outgained Dallas 100-45 on the ground). The 31-24 final score doesn’t even tell the entire story; with less than 5 minutes to go in the game, the Giants held a 31-17 lead. The Cowboys cut the lead to 7 with under a minute to play when Romo connected with Miles Austin for a touchdown. The Cowboys soundly beat the Giants in the time of possession battle, holding the ball for more than 38 minutes, to the Giants’ 21:10. They also managed to top us in total yards (424-337), first downs (27-15), total plays (80-49), and they turned the ball over fewer times.

So how did the Giants do it yesterday? Magic. Mostly smoke and mirrors, actually. You see, they were able to suspend an entire second team, just slightly above field level, while keeping them completely invisible to the naked eye– I’m just kidding. The Giants got help yesterday from a little something I like to call The Big Play. We haven’t seen too much of The Big Play this season, mostly because Plaxico Burress and Tiki Barber were our two biggest Big Play contributors in the past, and neither wear blue anymore. And Ahmad Bradshaw, who can typically be counted on to break a Big Play every now and then, is playing on not one, but two sprained ankles. In case you’re keeping score at home, he doesn’t have any more ankles to sprain. He has sprained just about every ankle he has. That’s two. In fact, the Giants number Big Play guy so far this season has been the rookie Hakeem Nicks. The first touchdown of his NFL career was a nifty 54-yard catch and run against Kansas City and his highlight reel 62 yard touchdown catch against Arizona were two of the biggest Big Plays the Giants have seen all year. Until yesterday.

Yesterday the Giants used The Big Play, and they used it well. I mean, how else do you score 31 points when your starting quarterback completes only 11 passes the entire game (11/25, 241 yards, 2 TD)? That’s right, The Big Play. One of these big plays came late in the third quarter, immediately after the Cowboys had just recaptured the lead at 17-14 on Romo’s second touchdown pass of the game to one of their Roy Williamses. The one that catches passes (or doesn’t, if you’re going by his stats from the last two years). Anyway, on the Giants’ first play following that touchdown, Manning swung the ball out into the flat for Brandon Jacobs, who proceeded to make a few defenders miss and then tightroped his way down the near-sideline for 74 yards and a Giants touchdown. I was going to follow that with an analogy about the last time I saw Brandon Jacobs run that fast, until I realized that I have never seen Brandon Jacobs run that fast. Ever. All of a sudden, it was 21-17 Giants, and the momentum was priority-shipped right back to us, and we would never relinquish it.

After a 25-yard pass to Steve Smith (6 rec., 110 yards) and a 29-yard scamper by Bradshaw set up another Tynes field goal to extend the Giants’ lead to 24-17, the rejuvenated Big Blue defense forced Dallas to punt and the Big Play that came next, would serve as the proverbial nail in the coffin. Domenik Hixon returned Mat McBriar’s punt 79 yards for the touchdown, electrifying the Giants Stadium crowd and most importantly, letting Giants fans breathe a little bit easier on the way to victory. The punt return was the Giants first since Chad Morton brought one back against Arizona in the 2005 season opener and it was Hixon’s first return touchdown since he brought back a kick-off against New England in the 2007 finale.

As for the defense…they still allowed a ton of yards. Although they succeeded in shutting down the run game and neutralizing Dallas’ three-headed monster of Marion Barber, Felix Jones and Tashard Choice (they allowed 251 yards rushing at Dallas in Week 2), the pass defense still left a lot to be desired. Tony Romo completed 41 of 55 passes for 392 yards with 3 touchdowns and no interceptions. Jason Witten had a field day, and continued the pattern of tight ends absolutely torching the Giants secondary. His 14 catches for 156 yards were both career highs and I swear that if he converted one more 3rd and 16 with a sliding catch over the middle I was going to chug Windex and light myself on fire. The changes that the coaching staff made to the defense yesterday, starting Kiwanuka over Umenyiora, Chris Canty over Fred Robbins and Johnathan Goff over Chase Blackburn at middle linebacker, seemed to spark the defense where it mattered; Umenyiora ended up recovering a huge Marion Barber fumble at the end of the first half and returning it deep into Dallas territory which led to Brandon Jacobs’ one-yard touchdown run and the Giants 14-10 halftime lead. However, the same weaknesses that we’ve been seeing all season were still exposed yesterday, namely the middle of the field, where Romo picked apart the Giants linebackers by hitting Witten and Austin over and over again on slant routes.

The big difference though, was that the Giants defense stepped up and make stops when they had to, and because of that, Big Blue lives to fight another week. Not only is a win over the Cowboys important in the race for the NFC East, but it’s always sweeter to beat the hated division rivals, not once but twice in one season. Their schedule gets tough over the next few weeks (San Diego and New Orleans) which means that the Giants need to take advantage of this door that has suddenly been re-opened for them. A win at home next week against Philly and the week after that in Washington could put the Giants back in first place. As we all know however, winning in the NFC East is always easier said than done.


Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories : Uncategorized

Falcon Punch

23 11 2009

As I descended down the escalator by Gate B yesterday after the game, I overheard a Giants fan behind me say, “That was probably the most depressing win I’ve ever seen.” Now, I don’t entirely agree with him. I don’t think there is such a thing as a depressing win in the NFL. With a short 16-game season, any kind of win, whether it be a pretty win, an ugly win or even an accidental win, is a good win. Having said that (anyone who has seen the latest episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm knows why I had to throw that in), I could see where that fan was coming from. I wouldn’t call yesterday’s win a depressing one, or even an ugly one for that matter. Maybe “discouraging”. Perhaps even a little “unconvincing”. When the game-winning field goal sailed off Lawrence Tynes’ foot and through the uprights with 11:06 to go in overtime, I celebrated loudly along with whoever else had decided not to leave the stadium when the Giants took a 31-17 lead.

The truth is, the game shouldn’t even have come down to Lawrence Tynes and it definitely should not have come down to an overtime period because like I said earlier, the Giants had a 31-17 lead. How did a two touchdown lead turn into an overtime coin toss in the span of 12 minutes? Well, it happened in very similar fashion to how we lost the game against San Diego. Instead of stepping up and making a big defensive stop or two in the fourth quarter, the defense instead folded like an origami swan. Matt Ryan took the Falcons down the field for two consecutive touchdown drives that looked about as difficult for Atlanta as heating up a Pop-Tart.

I don’t typically use phrases like “dinking and dunking” because I’m not Ron Jaworski, but that’s exactly what the Falcons did on their back-to-back 12 play drives in the fourth quarter. They played it safe and kept everything in the middle of the field, which is ironically exactly what the Giants defense did. By guarding against the big play (a 70-yard touchdown pass to Roddy White or something along those lines) and trying to keep the clock running, they ultimately ignored the short to medium 10-15 yard passes over the middle and stayed away from Atlanta tight end Tony Gonzalez like he was a leper, even when he scored the game-tying touchdown with 28 seconds left.

Call me psychic if you want, but I knew that this game was going into overtime when the Falcons scored to cut the Big Blue lead to 31-24. It’s not that I’m a cynic or that my Gatorade cooler is half-empty, it’s just that if I’ve seen this once, I’ve seen it a hundred times. The Giants are just about the only team that can make a two touchdown lead feel like they’re losing. Giants fans shouldn’t have to sit on the edge of their La-Z-Boys or uncomfortable plastic stadium seats when the score is 31-17 with 12:08 to play in the fourth quarter, yet that’s exactly what I was doing yesterday. Luckily, yesterday’s overtime drama didn’t last too long, but it was just long enough for my Overtime Anxiety Syndrome to kick in. I seem to be a magnet for overtime games lately, as yesterday was the third one I’ve been to in the past two seasons, but before I could start chewing on my hat like it was a 14 oz. NY Strip, Eli Manning stepped up just like he had been doing all day and completed a 29-yard strike down the far sideline to Mario Manningham to set up the Giants on the Falcons’ 23-yard line. A few plays later, as we held our collective breath, Tynes tucked one inside the right upright and the Giants had snapped their 4-game losing streak. The first win in 42 days.

The performances that stood out the most to me yesterday were the ones turned in by Eli Manning (25/39, 384 yards, 3 TDs), Mario Manningham (6 rec., 126 yards) and Kevin Boss (5 rec., 76 yards, 2 TDs). Our fearless leader put forth his second thoroughly impressive game in a row, and aside from an interception on the opening drive of the game, he was nearly perfect. His 384 yards marked a career-high total and the first time he had ever thrown for over 300 yards at Giants Stadium, a pretty odd statistic, considering he’s in his 5th full season and has started almost 50 games there. He stepped up and made big throws in big situations, including huge 51-yard pass to Steve Smith (4 rec., 79 yards) that led to the Brandon Jacobs touchdown run early in the 3rd quarter which gave the Giants a 24-14 lead and answered the Falcons previous touchdown drive to start the second half. As for Mario Manningham, my love affair with his athleticism grows by the week and he made some catches yesterday that made me forget all about Amani Toomer’s sideline acrobatics and Plaxico Burress’s one-handed grabs. He is going to be a phenomenal wide receiver one day, and I feel like we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg right now, as far as his potential in the NFL.

All in all, the Giants picked up a sorely needed win yesterday that may have been the spark that they need to rejuvenate their season. Having said that, there are still several kinks that still need to be smoothed out on the defensive side of the ball. We’ll be able to tell for sure on Thanksgiving night in Denver, but for now, a nice overtime victory works well to help me forget the fact that I picked up Jason Snelling for my fantasy team to replace Michael Turner and then left him on the bench and watched as he scored two touchdowns yesterday. That’s life.

Read more: http://giants.gearupforsports.com/blog/#ixzz0XjCcoIHj


Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories : Uncategorized

Giants-Cardinals Running Diary

27 10 2009

ALSO FEATURED ON THE OFFICIAL NY GIANTS BLOG AT GEAR UP FOR SPORTS

I think it’s about time for me to break out a running diary, and what would be a better occasion for it than a Sunday night game on national television against the defending NFC Champs? Just know that this live account of the game was preceded by 4 hours of tailgating and took place in the very last row of Giants Stadium on a perfectly brisk late-October night. In other words, the circumstances couldn’t be more perfect. Unfortunately, the game didn’t really follow suit. But here’s how it unfolded, for you to relive over and over again, free of charge. You’ll thank me later….10,000 words later.

4:45 p.m.: There’s always a unique atmosphere in the parking lot before night games, which is why I love coming to them. I think that having 6+ hours to drink beer and cook food, coupled with the fact that you have more than 6 hours to drink beer and eat food, is what makes it so special. Wait, did I just list the same reason twice? For the record, my buddy Dan and I are cooking chicken skewers, shrimp and bratwurst tonight. Best menu of the season so far.

5:37 p.m.: I’ve already counted 6 Cardinals jerseys here in the parking lot, which is 6 more than I saw the last time the Cards visited Giants Stadium in 2005. I guess we can chalk that up as being one of the benefits of playing in the Super Bowl; their fans are no longer afraid to leave the house without paper bags over their heads.

6:11 p.m.: Lawrence Taylor was signing autographs outside Gate C for the past hour. The line to see him was longer than the line for the port-a-john, so I had to make a judgment call. I chose to relieve myself. Chalk one up for tailgating. The score: Tailgating 1, Me 0.

7:09 p.m.: Someone is shooting off fireworks over by the racetrack and the people tailgating next to us are playing Christmas music. Oddly enough, these two separate events have me really excited for the game to start. Some things can’t be explained and other things shouldn’t have to be explained. I think this falls into both categories.

8:02 p.m.: Heading into the Stadium along with the masses. On the line waiting to get patted down by security, I hear a guy in front of me remark to his friend, “See, I told you night games are different” as four guys in Jacobs jerseys in front of them are forced to throw out the unopened beers they managed to stuff inside their jackets. Have I mentioned that I love night games?

8:26 p.m.: Tonight we are honoring the 1986 Super Bowl Championship team. Lawrence Taylor gets a standing ovation when he is introduced and I can’t help but think that this should help inspire the defense, in case they’re not already sufficiently inspired. It would be blasphemous to not play well with legends like LT, Harry Carson and Leonard Marshall watching from the sidelines.

1st Quarter

14:54 – On the first play from scrimmage, Warner hits Steve Breaston over the middle for 23 yards to the Giants 43. He’s tackled by….guess who….C.C. Brown! I’m having Vietnam flashbacks of last week and we’ve only played 6 seconds.

13:39 – I forgot to mention that in addition to honoring the ’86 team, Giants Stadium is going to be playing 80′s songs all night. We were just treated to “In The Air Tonight” by Phil Collins during the last TV timeout. I don’t know why this is important, but the Cardinals are now on the Giants 27 and I’m wondering if maybe I got tickets to last week’s game by accident.

13:05 – FUMBLE!!!!! Tim Hightower is stripped by Justin Tuck and recovered by Michael Johnson. The play was originally ruled down by contact, but when the replay was showed on the jumbotron it was clear that the ball was out before Hightower was down. What came next could only be described as 78,000 people yelling at Tom Coughlin to throw the challenge flag. I’ve never heard the crowd that adamant that a play should be challenged. Of course Tommy challenged it and of course it was reversed because his challenge record is impeccable. First down Giants at their own 27. I’ve changed my mind, not a bad start so far.

11:39 – Eli has come out with three straight passes to start the Giants first offensive possession, with completion to Manningham and Hixon. I can’t say I wholeheartedly agree with this, but the Cardinals are stacking 9 in the box right now and I don’t have much input on the Giants offensive gameplan anyway. Really? Nine in the box?

10:22 – Three and out. Apparently there’s a baseball game going on right now too. Judging from people around me, it’s a pretty important game. The stadium just erupted in a roar because Vladimir Guerrero got thrown out at first. Clearly, Giants fans are anxious for things to cheer about. (By the way, I’m well aware that it’s Game 6 of the ALCS, I’m just trying to go as long as I possibly can without fully acknowledging it.)

7:21 – Eli throws a deep ball over the middle and ends up trying to force it into a tight spot and, well, you can probably guess what happened. It originally looked as if Hixon came down with the pass in the end zone, but Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie won the jump ball and ripped it away from 87. Not exactly how I expected that play to end. What a tease, Eli. That was like dangling a steak in front of Artie Lange.

2nd Quarter

15:00 – I’ve sat through sociology lectures that were more exciting than that first quarter. After Eli’s interception, both teams traded punts (not even a good punt, in Feagles’ case) and now the Cardinals have the ball on their own 25 yard line. The good news is that not only is it 1-0 Angels in the 3rd inning right now, but also that we will be treated to the world’s best frisbee-catching dogs at halftime. I don’t even think that ‘ecstatic’ fully describes how I’m feeling.

14:06 – Well, our defense finally made a big play. Warner’s pass over the middle intended for Larry Fitzgerald was intercepted by Terrell Thomas. By the way, Thomas has been a ball-hawk all night so far. He has already broken up two passes and now has an interception. I feel like there are 11 of him on the field right now. That’s a good thing. Terrell Thomas is growing on me.

13:34 – Good news: Brandon Jacobs just rumbled his way down the sidelines for 25 yards to the Cardinals 4. First and goal. Bad news: The Yankees just took the lead in the bottom of the 4th. Trade-offs. I feel like I’m in Sophie’s Choice right now.

13:28 – TOUCHDOWN BRANDON JACOBS!!! Only the second touchdown of the season for the Jacobs, but it’s now 7-0 Giants and it’s enough to make me forget about the Yankees score for a second, as well as the fact that I’m losing my fantasy game to a guy that has Kurt Warner, Tim Hightower and Larry Fitzgerald on his team.

10:38 – Cardinals go three and out again. Then Eli is sacked and loses 11 yards on a 3rd and 2. Which raises the question, why are we throwing the football on a 3rd and 2? The run game has been almost non-existent tonight. I don’t know when the Cardinals bought a defense, but I certainly don’t remember them having one.

9:59 – A rare Shankopotamus just appeared. Jeff Feagles managed to boot a 28-yard gem which came off the side of his foot and wobbled out of bounds at the Arizona 44 yard line. Very uncharacteristic of Feagles.

8:18 – By the way, I just checked my fantasy team stats on my phone and found out that Vernon Davis and Miles Austin combined for 60 points today. Of course, none of that matters because both players were sitting next to each other on my make believe fantasy bench. I’m trying to remind myself why I love fantasy football so much.

7:36 - Yet another three and out for Arizona and then another three and out for the Giants. This game is getting a little out of hand. It’s going to be extremely difficult to transcribe this column with all of this constant action. And as I made that comment, Feagles punted 33 yards to our own 46 yard line. Unbelieveable. Two straight awful punts. I don’t think the Cardinals have started more than one drive from inside their own 35. It’s only a matter of time before the field position battle comes back to haunt us.

4:18 – ….And that time is up. Beanie Wells goes 13 yards off left tackle for the touchdown. The Yankees have a 3-1 lead on the Angels. I swear I didn’t just peek over the wall behind me to see how high of a jump it would be. Benefits of sitting in the last row of the stadium.

2:09 – Wow. Either the Giants just got really lucky, or they took the Broncos’ Orton-to-Stokley tipped pass and added it to the playbook. Manning’s deep pass over the middle intended for Manningham was tipped by Rodgers-Cromartie and then caught by Hakeem Nicks, perfectly in stride, who took it in for the touchdown. 14-7 Giants, 62-yard touchdown pass. Score one point for excitement.

Halftime – I missed the Cardinals final drive of the half which resulted in a 30 yard field goal, set up by a 44-yard pass from Warner to Anquan Boldin. I had to get a head-start on the line for the restroom. As it turns out, the lines were predictably long and I also missed the world’s greatest frisbee-catching dogs, which may or may not have been the second most exciting thing to happen in this game so far. 14-10 Giants at the half.

We will now fast-forward to the 13:11 mark of the 4th quarter, because the only notes I have written down about the 3rd quarter are, “ugh”, “not again”, “wow, that’s a lot of  boo’s” and “nice pass Eli”. Just to recap the third, the Cardinals scored on their first possession of the second half on a Hightower touchdown run after another Giants three and out. An Eli Manning pass that was picked off by Eugene Wilson later in the quarter led to a 6-yard touchdown pass from Warner to Jason Wright to make it 24-14 Cardinals. At this point, I was standing on my seat and hoping that they didn’t show anymore highlights from the Yankees game on the jumbotron.

4th Quarter

13:11 – Aside from the touchdown we scored off the fluke tipped pass play and the touchdown that was set up by Terrell Thomas’s interception, the offense hasn’t done much of anything tonight. Regardless, we are now set up on the Cardinals 44 yard line with a chance to cut into this lead.

9:50 – A 17 yard pass over the middle to Steve Smith and it’s first down at the Cardinals’ 11 yard line. The Giants can get a first down without scoring a touchdown, which is definitely an advantage for us and our poor red-zone offense. Although it’s still a two-score game and we need a touchdown and field goal, it’s always easier to get the touchdown first and then only need a field goal to tie.

9:05 – Third and three on the 4-yard line. I’m thinking that if they can’t pick up the first down here that they go for it on fourth down. With 9 minutes left, there’s still plenty of time left to make a stop with Arizona pinned on their own 1.

8:14 – Of course Jacobs only picks up 2 yards on a 3rd and 3 and of course Coughlin opts to kick the field goal instead of going for it on fourth down. Especially when Jacobs already converted a fourth down earlier on this drive. I guess we’ll settle for 24-17 and see if our defense can make some plays.

4:48 – Huge, huge stop for the defense. Kiwanuka comes up with the sack on a big 3rd and 3 play. Three timeouts to go, 83 yards for the touchdown. If the offense has any signs of life tonight, I think now would be the time for it to show its face. The Yankees are up 4-2 in the 8th and I’m starting to feel the first signs of OAS (Overtime Anxiety Syndrome). Amazing.

4:03 – Manning passes over the middle to Kevin Boss who makes an incredible catch for 25 yards to the Giants 42. What’s even more incredible was that he managed to hold onto the ball after he got his bell rung by Antrel Rolle. And even more amazing than that: I can actually feel NBC put up the graphic about the number of career comebacks in the 4th quarter or overtime that Eli Manning has. I hate close games.

3:52 – Well, Boss did a nice job of holding onto the ball after that catch, but guess who couldn’t hold onto the ball? Ahmad Bradshaw. After a nice 14 yard run to the Arizona 44, he loses the football and I haven’t seen the air sucked out of a stadium that quickly since the Vet was imploded. I would probably leave now if everyone else in the stadium didn’t have the same exact idea. Now I’m actually avoiding the traffic by staying.

2:52 – Can someone explain to me why the Cardinals just threw three straight passes? A 7 point lead with under 4 minutes to play and you don’t want to run the football and force the Giants to use up their timeouts? How does this make any sense at all? Actually, I’m not complaining. Improbably, we have one more chance now, at our own 9 yard line. This is it, this is what Eli does best.

2:45 – We’re going the wrong way…..

2:19 – HUGE PLAY! 3rd and 15 from our own 4, Eli completes a 34 yard pass to Steve Smith, and the hope is still alive! My eye is twitching at hyper speed right now, it’s like I have a metronome taped to my eyelid. I love overtime games.

1:20 – Pass to Manningham for 12 yards, Jacobs runs for 9 yards and then another 2 and it’s first down on the Cardinals 39. Timeout Giants. There’s that weird, uneasy, palpable buzz in the air right now that you can feel when a game starts coming down to the wire. It’s hard to describe, but it’s one of the reasons why I love football.

1:08 – A stomach punch. Talk about sucking the air completely out of the stadium, I’ve just seen it happen twice in a five-minute span. Unbelievable. Manning is picked off by Antrel Rolle on a pass intended for Steve Smith. What a somber scene right now, which is sure to be shattered in a few moments when everyone realizes that the Yankees just clinched the pennant. I can’t get out of this stadium fast enough right now.

The Giants beat themselves tonight, plain and simple. That’s what I’m going to convince myself after seeing that disappointing ending. Two opportunities to drive down the field and tie it in the final 5 minutes, two opportunities stopped dead in their tracks by two turnovers. Two awful, completely avoidable turnovers. I’m going to convince myself that we beat ourselves tonight if only because, for the second game in a row, we couldn’t get the job done against a quality team. This week it was the offense, not the defense, that left a lot to be desired. I thought we would come out and play with a little more intensity on our home turf for a Sunday night game, but that intensity was nowhere to be found. It was the costly turnovers that hurt us the most in the end, and at 5-2 now, we still have some room for improvement and luckily some room for error also, but it has to get better when we face the Eagles next week. And I believe that it will.


Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories : Sports


Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.