Some Giants Nostalgia

The last time the Giants got off to this good a start was 1990 when they were 10-0 through the first 11 weeks. The 49ers also got off to a 10-0 start and the Giants had their 12th game set as a Monday night match up against those Montana-led 49ers. The entire country was looking forward to the Giants and 49ers beating their opponents in game 11 and having two 11-0 teams facing each other for the first time in NFL history, and doing so on the national stage of Monday Night Football for some added circus.

But to get to that 12th game undefeated, Giants had to get past game 11 against the Eagles in Philadelphia and 49ers had to get past the Rams (then still playing in Los Angeles). Instead of setting up that perfect 11-0 matchup, both the Giants and the 49ers lost their 11th games making that Monday night game a contest between two teams that were 10-1 rather than 11-0.
The 49ers, led by legendary qb Montana, won that Monday night game against the Giants in a close, low scoring defensive struggle and went on to a 14-2 season, preparing to go for their third straight Superbowl, the three-peat. Giants finished the season at 13-3 and lost their starting qb, Phil Simms in their 14th game against the Bills. Jeff Hoestetler came in at qb and you know the rest: Giants beat the 49ers in San Francisco in the conference championship game 15-13 on a Matt Bahr FG as time expired to prevent the three-peat. They won the Superbowl against the Bills 20-19 when Scott Norwood missed a FG at the final gun. If I remember correctly, he was wide right from 47 yards away on a grass field. Check the record books, I might have that wrong.

But of course, what's relevant to this week is the Eagles game coming up in Philadelphia and I'll take a look back to that Eagle game in 1990 in Philadelphia. I'm going on memory now about that game to recapture what happened and reconstruct the events, but I think I have most of the details right. Giants had a bruising running game that year led by power runner OJ Anderson and a huge OL led by Jumbo Elliot, William Roberts, Eric Moore, Brian Oates and Doug Riesenberg. They used that power running game to make their offense go and relied on Simms to Bavaro and some other good-but-not-great WR's to compliment that running game. They controlled the clock in most games, got a lead early, never turned the ball over, played very conservatively on offense and then relied on their great defense, led by LT and Carl Banks to win. For some reason, Parcells decided that this was the week to take the shackles off of Simms and the passing game and throw the ball all over the field against the Eagles defense. The Giants came out throwing, scored a TD right at the end of the half but missed the PAT and were behind 14-13 at half time. They did nothing offensively in the 2nd half and the Eagles got a turnover and got some late scores to win going away. Randall Cunningham was the qb of the Eagles and he dominated the game. Parcells took quite a bit of heat and second guessing for turning away from his trusted running game. In the succeeding weeks of the regular season, Giants lost two more games - to the 49ers and the Bills, but beat both of those teams in the playoffs to bring home the title. Once again this year, the Eagles stand in the Giants path with a game in their home stadium early in the 2nd half of a season when it looks like the Giants are set to make another playoff run. Let's see how it turns out this week and this season.