Monday, December 15, 2008

Cowboys post mortem II

OK - you're going to think I am nuts, or an unreasonably optimistic Giants fan, but despite all the negative aspects from the Cowboys game, the Giants actually had chances to make some plays and to win the game. They did not miss by much. I reviewed the video of the game and it wasn't as bad as it seemed watching it live Sunday night. When the Giants were down 14-3, they pinned the Cowboys inside their own 5 and forced a 3rd and 12. They sacked Romo for a safety and got the ball after the free kick in fairly good field position. They moved the ball well into Cowboy territory. Then Eli threw a perfect ball to Toomer that should have been a first down inside the 10 yard line. Toomer was blatantly interfered with but Giants did not get the call. On the next play, Eli threw another perfect pass on a go route to Hixon. Hixon was 2 steps behind the CB and the ball was over the DB's head and hit Hixon right in his hand. Hixon did not look back early enough and did not locate the ball otherwise it was an easy TD. As it was he got one hand up in the air and the ball deflected off his hand. If they score a TD there, it is a 14-12 game and the Giants just need to get a stop and a FG to win the game.

I'm not now looking at the world through rose colored glasses and claiming that the loss against the Cowboys was bad luck and a very close game that could have gone either way. After all, the Cowboys did sack Eli 8 times. I'm just saying that the OL doesn't forget how to block in two weeks after doing a great job for the better part of 12 games. As important as Burress is to the offense, the other WRs are decent and can make some plays even without this important player. Giants have to make some adjustments to handle this press coverage and aggressive run stuffing defense, but they have capable personnel and should be able to handle it. And - I am saying that despite getting hammered by the Cowboys pass rush all night, Giants still were a play or two from winning the game and those plays were within their reach.

4 comments:

Yankel the Nachash said...

Ok Wolfman, I'm back on the program. In reviewing my multiple mid-game text messages that I sent, in between "This reminds me of Dave Brown era" and "I'm changing the channel to House of Saddam" I found that I sent the following message, "I'll take the halftime lead and the ball to start the second half and pretend this first half never happened" This was written while trailing 7-3 with the ball and roughly 2 minutes left. Of course, we didn't score, but there's two points to be taken here:
1. As bad as it felt, as you correctly pointed out, we still could have won the game because we still have a great defense.
2. I still have some optimism in me.

Unknown said...

I am not panicking until it really is time to panic. If we get wasted thsi week, it might be time to... um... be concerned. We have the Panthers this week, who laid the worst playoff beating in history on us, except for maybe that 44-3 game in the 1994 playoffs against the 49ers.

I'm still ticked off at that a$$hole Mark Jackson for dropping that pass that would have won us the game against the Cowboys in week 15 in that 1994 season. Instead of being the 1 seed, getting a bye and playing either the 49ers or Cowboys but not both - we were the 3 seed, had no bye, and ahd to go both the Cowboys and the 49ers in the NFC side of the tournament. We played vikings in round 1 on Sunday and had to travel cross country and play a Saturday afternoon game. It didn't seem fair. Anyway, I was busy in the afternoon (I think you know where) and by the time I got home and turned on the game, the Giants were already down like 3 TDs. It was dead-team-walking.

Anyway - the Panthers whipped us 23-0 in that game that was Eli's first playoff appearance and many of the same cast of characters are in place and would like a little nekama, if you know what I mean.

wm

Yankel the Nachash said...

I think the Bears 85' playoff loss is the worst of my memory, or maybe the Flipper Anderson game, may his name never be mentioned again on this blog.
As for Saturday afternoon games, I guess DVR really changes everything. We used to tape games on VCR. Funny sidenote: we taped game 6 of the 86 World Series bc it fell on a Jewish holiday and when we watched the game, the tape ran out right before the start of the bottom of the tenth!

Unknown said...

Yankel,

That's a funny story about the tape running out - similar things have happened to me over the years. One time I didn't anticipate a game going into overtime and I had everything but the OT on tape. Other times I taped the wrong channel - it's confusing sometimes when Giants are playing an AFC team... on the road, at home, oy - which channel?. All that is much easier now with DVRs, when you're recording based on a scheudle that you see on the screen AND you can easily adjust the end time to go an extra 30 or 60 minutes.

But my best story about taping is this: I had all three playoff games from the 1990 superbowl run on VHS tapes. My wife wanted to record a show a few weeks later, it was Peter Pan with Mary Martin as Peter in case you're keeping score, and she was looking for a tape to use. She reached into a pile, saw one that said: Giants vs. 49ers 1990 Conference Campionship and said: "this game is over, he does not need this tape anymore". So she taped over it. Fortunately that show ran shorter than the game, so I still had the 4th qtr of that game on VHS, which I since converted to DVD to avoid a repetition of this catastrophe.

As far as worst playoff game: the flipper anderson game was pretty bad as was the Bears game. But both spurred the Giants onto Superbowl victories the following years, so they are not so painful anymore.

The Panthers game was total domination: outplayed, outcoached, outhit, outeverythinged. What really burns me is that it was a beautiful day and i spent like 700 on tickets to take all my kids to the game; we had a great tailgate, and then.... nothing.

-wm