Return of the Road Warriors
By Superfan
Anybody out there still have his or her voice? Didn’t think so. How about those NEW YORK FOOTBALL GIANTS!!! THE ROAD WARRIORS ARE BACK!! It’s been sinking in in tiny increments since the game ended on Sunday of just how dominating a victory that was in Green Bay for our Gmen over the preordained repeat Super Bowl champions.
I want to get this out of the way early. I don’t want to hear any more whining and excuse-making about how the Giants didn’t win this game, but that Green Bay lost it. BULL. First things first, we beat not only the Packers but the refs as well. Bill Leavy and his crew should be ashamed of the job they did Sunday. I’ll get to the absurdity of the “no-fumble” call in a moment, but there were a plethora of other missed calls throughout. There were some missed roughing-the-passer calls against Eli that weren’t only blatant but dangerous. In the fourth quarter, for example, Eli completed a clutch third down pass to Cruz and was hit extremely late by Clay Matthews IN THE FACEMASK! And we shouldn’t have even needed that, since Charles Woodson should’ve been called for pass interference against Jake Ballard on the previous play. On the flipside, they called a roughing the passer penalty on Osi Umenyiora for hitting Rogers in the head even though he used perfect form to AVOID just that (as the replays clearly showed). I could go on, but it’s too infuriating. And every team has drops. Jake Ballard had a few key drops of his own to hurt our offense. That didn’t cost them the game. In my humble opinion, the missed fumble call alone more than made up for the Packers’ missteps. HOW IS THAT NOT A FUMBLE? What could he possibly have seen that led him to believe he was down by contact? Okay, I’ve said my piece on that. Moving on…
The View From Home
Joe was in San Diego for a few days, leaving me in charge of taking care of Vandy. Which was awesome. It also forced me to be up in time to catch NFL Sunday Countdown (West Coast time zone), which meant seeing Boomer (and everyone else) pick the Packers to win. You know it’s going to be a good game when Chris Berman picks against the Gmen.
With Joe gone and Justine having family-in-town-hosting-duties, it was just JJ, Vandy, and me watching at the McClellan Drive Duplex. I figured (hoped) that losing one guy and one girl meant would offset any bad juju, and therefore wouldn’t be too damaging to the viewing system.
The game itself was insane. Just incredible. Our voices were gone by the second quarter (making it very hard actually to order a pizza after the game). By the end of the fourth quarter I was well into my rounds of running through the street outside, screaming with whatever was left of my voice. The rest of the day involved watching and re-watching the highlights and analysis, over and over again, until it was time to fall asleep.
I also want to give some props to Joe Buck. I give the guy a lot of slack for how monotonous, emotionless, and condescending he can be as a play-by-play guy. He was anything but on his call of the Hakeem Nicks Hail Mary touchdown reception. Surprisingly exuberant and exciting. Still, he’s no Bob Papa.
Two Down, Two To Go
Like I said earlier, we completely dominated the Packers on both sides of the ball on Sunday, and on special teams (except Lawrence Tynes…again). How about some credit to our secondary? All those rushing yards Aaron Rodgers gained were really wins for the Giants’ secondary. He had to run, because he wanted to go deep but no one was open. They’re a big play offense, and we never let them get any big plays. Our pass rush started a little slow but got going as the game went on, finishing with four sacks (one of them a forced fumble). They flew all over the field and created turnovers (despite one or two being taken away), never letting Rodgers or that vaunted Packers’ offense find any sort of a rhythm. They were exactly what they needed to be, and the results proved it.
As for the offense, I’d like to explore what’s happened with Eli Manning. Typically quarterbacks peak around their third or fourth year in the league. They’ve been around enough to master the offense, master reading defenses, and it’s sink or swim from there. Eli had a small turn around that time, which happened during our Super Bowl 42 run. From there he was good but inconsistent, and only really showed up late in games once in a while, though still a bit of a question mark. This year has been his true peak. No longer is he just a good quarterback with potential to be great. It’s been an entire season now. He’s great. He’s elite. He’s top five. Go watch the fourth quarter touchdown pass to Mario Manningham. On the replays shown from Eli’s POV, not only did he fit the ball perfectly into a tiny hole, but he threw a LASER through that defense to get it there. It really was a thing of beauty.
Much props to our hands team on those onside kicks. Two plays that could have allowed the Packers back in it, but we came up huge both times. And while he made two field goals, Lawrence Tynes continues to worry me. Yes his missed field goal was blocked, but it was also a low kick on a 40-yard attempt. Most kickers don’t need to kick low for that distance. And to have any kickoff go out of bounds in the NFL, especially in the PLAYOFFS, is inexcusable. Let’s hope the rest of the team can continue to hide his mistakes, even though they shouldn’t have to. Now for some game balls:
Offensive Game Ball - Hakeem Nicks. Not to take anything away from the guy delivering his two touchdown catches, but Nicks really was the difference maker on Sunday. His first touchdown came on a HUGE play after the catch, including bouncing off a vicious hit delivered by the Packers’ Charlie Peprah. And boy did he make going up for that Hail Mary jump ball look easy. I don’t think it would’ve mattered if Green Bay had all eleven guys in the end zone with him; Hakeem Nicks was the only guy coming down with that ball.
Defensive Game Ball - The Entire Secondary. They’ve gotten slack (much of it deserved) most of the season for their inability to stop the big play. But they were all over the place on Sunday. They kept one of the best receiving groups in football covered all day, enabling the front four to finally get in and knock Rodgers around. Looking over my game notes, I’m seeing Phillips, Rolle, Grant, and company written all over them, this time in great context. Deon Grant made a great play on the fumble that wasn’t, but got his moment back on the game-sealing interception. On a day where we needed our secondary to play its best football, it most certainly did.
Non-Gmen Thoughts of the Week:
· Facebook Comment of the Week - “Giants-37; Green Bay-6, Refs-14.” - Timothy Mcintyre. Chances are the league will send a letter of apology to the Giants about the poor refereeing. I know the perfect place for them to put that letter.
· Forgot to mention this last week, but I’ve been growing a playoff beard that is now going into its third-plus week. Last week the beard was looking very Billy Mays. This week, with the added growth, it’s a bit more like Liev Schreiber. If all goes according to plan, when it’s all over I’ll look like I belong in ZZ Top.
· Haven’t gotten Sirius Radio installed in my new car yet, so instead of listening to NFL Radio like I’d hoped, I was stuck with the Jim Rome show, with special guest host Jason Smith. And he had this 10-minute rant about Eli Manning being the new Brett Favre-style quarterback that actually made my brain hurt. It’s like it new these crazy noises were just making me dumber for having listened to them. Favre was a scrambling passer who relied on pure skill instead of cerebral performance. Eli is a quarterback who does most of his moving within the pocket and -- you know what, NO, I’m not going to dignify myself with a response to that lunacy.
· So glad Californication is back. Still have to wait until March and April for Mad Men and Game of Thrones though.
Final Thoughts:
I’m noticing something about this Giants’ team now though that’s making me believe. Crazy things are happening in our favor. Against the Falcons it was them going for it on those fourth downs. This week it was the Hail Mary completion for a touchdown before halftime. Teams of destiny have those things work out in their favor. I’m just saying what I’m seeing, and I’m seeing something special in the works. That being said, celebrate this win, but don’t overdo it. We still have two more games to win, and as we saw on Saturday, San Francisco is just as hungry as we are. We won’t have the luxury of being the hopeless underdogs this week, but we need to act like it anyway. Go in there with something to prove. Keep the Road Warrior mentality! That was a huge win, but it’s not over yet. To talk all things Giants, you can e-mail me at gmensuperfan@gmail.com, find me on Facebook under the name “Gmen Superfan,” and/or follow me on Twitter under the user name “@gmensuperfan1.” Enjoy the recap shows and the flurry of anticipation as we head to the NFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME!!!! Until next week, GO GMEN!!
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