The Giants were down by nine points when Eli Manning came to the line of scrimmage on fourth down needing around six inches to get a first down to give them a legitimate chance to stay alive in the game.
He was stopped.
At that moment, the thought went through my head that the end may be near.
When the Giants got the ball back, on third down Derrick Ward was instructed to run the “Wildcat” for the first time all season. He was stuffed for no gain and it set up fourth down needing two yards to realistically save the season.
Brandon Jacobs received the ball and the Eagles stopped him short.
It was officially over.
Someone asked me what was my first reaction when it became apparent that the Giants reign as Super Bowl champions was going to come to an end.
The answer: “Disappointment.”
I was not angry at all. There was no need. Considering that the team was the defending world champions, and I had already considered this season as gravy before the year, my expectations had always been under control. Going 11-1 and looking like a possible better team than the 1986 Giants, it was very easy to get caught up in the hype. When the term “possible dynasty” came up, just thinking about it made one giddy.
Then, on a Friday night just after Thanksgiving, both Antonio Pierce and Plaxico Burress entered the Latin Quarter nightclub as the Giants were scheduled to face the Redskins that Sunday. Burress brought a gun to the place that night and somehow, pulled the trigger, shooting himself in the leg and ending his season.
Along with the Giants.
The team was never the same from that day forward. A lot of fans tried to put a strong face on it by saying that the team did not need him and everything was going to be fine without him. Many of them can be considered “intelligence impaired” when it came to his impact on the field that contributed to them becoming at the time, the best team in football. Simply plugging “another player” in there was not going to allow the train to keep moving at the same speed.
One week later, they lost at home badly to the Eagles to have their seven game winning streak snapped. It was dismissed at the time as nothing. The overriding opinion being that the team was merely distracted mixed in with the Eagles being desperate.
What no one knew at the time was that a blueprint of how the Giants could be beat was established that afternoon.
The Cowboys followed the same script the following week and when the Panthers took at 21-10 lead at halftime in the Meadowlands, it appeared the wheels were going to fall off. It took a gritty effort to rally and eventually win in overtime to clinch the number one seed.
However, there were patterns that the team had established that were bound to show up at some point in the future.
There was the Giants inability to score touchdowns consistently in the red zone to go along with their underreported incredible amount of penalties. Add to it what appeared to be a defensive line that was clearly wearing down after starting off the season strong. Not having both high level playing defensive ends Michael Strahan and Osi Umenyiora was going to come into play at a certain point. For as good as Tuck was, he was getting double and triple teamed and eventually wore down and became injured. Kiwanuka was almost non-existent the last seven weeks. Not having a good enough rotation of pass rushers played a role in how defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo called his schemes on defense.
He knew this.
Was it a case of peaking too early?
No.
The Giants were the number one scoring team in the league before “17” ended his season. From the official time he was shown the door by the team, in five games (really four if you discount the meaningless Minnesota game), the team did not score an offensive touchdown in three of them. Manning was not the same quarterback when his best receiver left (look at the passer rating numbers) and the teams running game outside of gashing Carolina (who proved to be fraudulent) for 300 yards, was not the same either. Steve Smith and Amani Toomer, two of the biggest recipients of little to no coverage previously, were now bottled up by better defenders.
The Philadelphia Eagles were that team.
The Eagles did what the Panthers and Cardinals would not have been able to do. They were familiar with the Giants, had all the videotape in the world and had very smart coaches that could devise a scheme to put them in situations they didn’t want.
Add to that combination, the Giants coaches deciding that they were going play a thinking man’s game of chess rather simply engage them in a street fight, and it was a recipe that played right into the Eagles hands.
Instead of running them over, they often times chose to go around them and that led to nothing.
When they got into the red zone, the decided to get cute and throw the ball up with a quarterback that was having problems all day.
They never simplified the gameplan. Instead, they decided that they were not going to be intimidated by Johnson and his defense and chose to be bullheaded.
The end result: Failure.
It is why the end is so disappointing. There could have been a different ending. But when you see the continued problems in the red zone and settling for field goals, the penalties that negated positive progress and a wearing down pass rush, you could see the writing on the wall as it all manifested itself on that Giants Stadium field on Sunday.
As they go into the offseason, they’ll look back at this missed chance. You never know when or if you will get that opportunity again. The team is made up of many young players set to enter the prime of their careers.
However, success in the NFL is designed to be short. One injury to a key player or the damaging actions of another can alter the course of an entire season.
There was a reason I did not pick the Giants to go back to the Super Bowl this year.
It played out on the field Sunday.
A lost chance.
1 comment:
So much was talked about how much Eli missed Plaxico as a receiver, but I don't recall anybody saying how he was also missed as a blocker.
Think back to all those breakaway runs by Ward in the last few games. How many times was he brought down because Hixon didn't do his job? Plax was great at that. Not as good as Hines Ward, but up there.
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