Giants snag a spot in Bowl

By Andrew Neumann
Collegian Staff
January 23, 2008

The ball hung in the air forever.

Depending on your age and outlook, it hung in the air for 6 years, or 8 years, or 17 years. It got off the ground low and appeared to be heading too far to the right. Perhaps the reason it didn’t lift right away was the emotional baggage that hung on it. The playoff collapses, the in-fighting and the tough losses of the last few years all seemed to melt away on the ball’s flight towards the goal post.

It seemed to whistle the echoes of the decisions that had put them at this point:

“The New York Giants have acquired Eli Manning via trade from the San Diego Chargers.”

“The 16th Head Coach of the New York Football Giants, Tom Coughlin.”

Then finally, at the last moment, the ball was guided in by a spirit that has been present with the New York Giants since October 2005. The late, saintly patriarch of the New York Giants, Mr. Wellington Mara, guided both the ball through the uprights and his Giants into the Super Bowl. It was a game played in a stadium that would have been empty long ago had it not been for his benevolence in negotiating the NFL’s groundbreaking TV deal in 1970. It was a game that he would have loved.

Coming off of a disastrous 8-8 season in 2006, and losing their best player, Tiki Barber, to retirement, the Giants were expected to win anywhere between five and seven games this year. They got off to an 0-2 start, surrendering 80 points to Dallas and Green Bay. They found themselves trailing 17-3 the next week against the Washington Redskins. It all could have ended right there. But the Giants stormed out in the second half to take a 24-17 lead in the final minutes. The Redskins came back and were within one yard of tying the game. The Giants defense then stopped Washington four straight times for their first win of the season. At the time, no one knew exactly what was starting.

The Giants were an uneven team for the rest of the year. They beat the bad teams and came up short against the NFC’s perceived elite: Dallas and Green Bay. They finally clinched a playoff spot in Week 16 against Buffalo and faced a decision that would define their season the next week. With the number five seed and a trip to Tampa Bay locked up, the Giants could have rested their starters against the 15-0 New England Patriots. Instead, the Giants played hard and almost pulled off the win, ultimately falling 38-35.

If there was ever a momentum-building loss, that was it. The next week, the giants went down to Tampa and smoked the Bucs. Then they went into Dallas to face a Cowboys team that had beaten them twice during the year. They would not be denied, however, and sent the Cowboys home (some of them in tears). Green Bay was the place the dream was supposed to end for Big Blue, with a game-time temperature of three degrees below zero. It took more than four quarters, but the Giants prevailed, 23-20, when Lawrence Tynes sent the Giants to their fourth Super Bowl.

Understandably, the Giants will be the “other team” in Arizona for the next two weeks. The Patriots are 13-point favorites at the moment. But to discredit what the Giants have done this year would be unforgivable. They have won three straight road playoff games and are the first NFC team to do so. They have won 10 straight road games, setting an NFL record. They have beaten two 13-win teams in consecutive weeks. They have done all of this with a quarterback who is better known for his older brother than he is for his play. They have done this with a coach who most people thought should be fired after last year. They have done this with a defensive end who only reported to the team four days before the first game of the season. And yet they are here, playing in the last game of the season in Glendale, Arizona.

Over the next two weeks, people will debate whether the Giants can stop the Patriots from making history. This is obviously an important debate, but one point must be raised: While the Giants have a chance to stop the Patriots from making history, they have already made a little of their own. And nothing that happens in the Super Bowl should diminish that.

neumanna1@lasalle.edu