We’re NOT Going to Disneyland
Not yet anyway and that’s a good thing. Something magical did happen on Sunday night though, and, for the moment, the Giants’ season has been saved.
It’s amazing, isn’t it, how quickly things can change. For instance, one minute the Lakers are LA’s team, the next the Clippers are?! One minute the Giants are this close to another collapse and the next their leading the NFC East. One minute Eli Manning isn’t considered a top 5 QB and the next he…well some still don’t see Eli as an “Eli-te” quarterback, and for those of you who would chose Tim Tebow or Cam Newton, no offense to those guys, over Eli, you’re crazy, but go ahead pick them, we’ll stick with Eli and we’ll beat you.
Speaking of winning, although this was a huge win for the Giants, it is not time to celebrate yet.
So Close
The Giants played admirably against the Packers. They were one or two big plays away from winning that game. There were one or two tackles that the Packers D made where they just caught an ankle, there were a few questionable calls and there were a few mistakes, but when you’re playing a team as good as the Packers, you need to be perfect, anything less can get you close, but it won’t get you the W.
If you believe at all in the power of numbers, in fate, destiny, what have you, the Giants-Patriots game in 2007 ended in the exact same score–38 to 35. Following that loss, the Giants went on to win their next four games. Perhaps this will be the history that the Giants repeat, instead of collapsing, perhaps they will finish the season strong, winning four in a row, and once they’re in the playoffs, anything can happen.
If you believe that there is power in numbers, check out Tom Martinez’s story and pass it on.
Tom Martinez
I didn’t know who Tom Martinez was until this weekend. Maybe if I were a Patriots fan I would have, as he is Tom Brady’s mentor, but as we all know, I’m not a Patriots fan, but I have become a fan of Tom Martinez. In addition to Tom Brady, Tom has also worked with John Elway and JaMarcus Russell and has been a respected and award winning coach at the College of San Mateo in California.
Tom is in dire need of a kidney transplant and the organization MatchingDonors.com is in the process of trying to find him a donor to save his life.
You may have seen the special CBS Sports did on Tom’s life, “The Tom Behind Tom Brady” which originally aired on Thanksgiving, that’s how I learned about him. If you haven’t, take a moment to watch it.
If you or someone you know is interested in finding out if you could be match for Tom, please visit MatchingDonors.com
Even if you’re not a match, someone out there is, so please share the link: http://www.cbssports.com/video/player/play/videos/a4C1pcoP3Xev4v1LCQIwvy7OXZlep2Hi/the-tom-behind-tom-brady
They Didn’t Listen
Well Giants I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so. I can’t imagine that game would have gone any worse if you had just done what I had asked, but you didn’t and now we are 6 and 5 and a loss or two away from another second half collapse. There’s not much else to say other than–play better!
For more on the Giants playoff picture, check out the latest edition of If The Season Ended Today
Oh wait, I do have more to say.
If The Season Ended Today
IF THE SEASON ENDED TODAY—
We’d be home.
Well, we, that is, our family, will be home in any case.
But the New York Football Giants would be home in the sense that they would NOT be in the playoffs.
But we control our own destiny–which is good, because history has shown time and time again that we can’t rely on any other team to win a game down the stretch.
Philly is 4-8 with only 4 games left, so they best they can be is 8-8. They are essentially eliminated unless all kinds of total disasters occur. The NFL website has them out, so there must be a plethora of tie-breakers working against them.
With 5 games left:
• We’re 6-5. 1-2 in division. 3 division games left–Washington & Dallas twice.
• Dallas is 7-4. 3-1 in division. 2 division games left–both against Giants.
• Washington is 4-7. 1-3 in division. 2 division games left–Giants and Eagles.
If we win them all, we’re division champs–at 11-5.
The next-best thing for us to do is beat Dallas twice and win two more games–vs Jets, GB and Washington.
If we beat Dallas twice:
• We can make the playoffs with 10 wins no matter what Dallas or Washington does. Because we’d be 10-6 and Dallas would be 10-6 and we’d have the tiebreaker having beaten them twice; and Washington could at best be 9-7.
• We can make the playoffs with 9 wins if Dallas loses one more game and Washington loses one more game. Because then Washington would be 8-8; Dallas would be 9-7 and we’d be 9-7 and we’d have the tiebreaker over Dallas.
If we beat Dallas twice and beat Washington:
• We’d be 9-7 and 4-1 in division.
• Dallas would be 10-6; so they’d have to lose another game, making them 9-7 and 3-3 in division.
• Washington would be 8-8 and out of it.
Here’s an odd one: If we beat Green Bay and Dallas loses to Arizona—and then we beat Dallas twice and lose to Washington and Jets—and Dallas and Washington win the rest of their games:
• We’d be 9-7; 3-3 in division
• Dallas would be 9-7. 3-3 in division.
• Washington would be 9-7. 3-3 in division.
In this 3-way tie: We beat Dallas twice; Dallas beat Washington twice; Washington beat us twice.
So no one wins head-to-head. Division record is the same. So it goes to common opponents. And I’m just too bleary eyed to try and figure that one out now.
Lets just beat the Packers and take it from there!
The Plan
In a New York minute everything can change. One minute you’re 6 and 2, you’re in first place and it feels like nothing, not even the New England Patriots can stop you. The next minute, you’ve lost 2 in a row and you start to think, is this it, is this the slide, are we one loss away from a total collapse?
One minute you’re in and the next you’re out, and to get back in you have to complete what seems like an impossible mission.
Granted, the Giants are far from done, but what lies ahead is brutal. We all know the schedule so I won’t belabor the point, but something has to change or this will turn into yet another long, disappointing season.
What can save our season? Days of Thunder. How you ask, well it’s all part of my plan. The tricky part will be getting Tom Coughlin and the coordinators to listen to me.
Consistency
Losing never feels good, but if there is any bright side to be found in our loss to the 49ers, it is that the Giants with their gutsy play and never say die attitude have proven that this team is for real. Unfortunately for us so are the San Francisco 49ers, they simply played better than we did.
And perhaps another 4th quarter comeback was too much to ask for. Perhaps converting on 4th down 3 times in one drive was too much to ask for. But this team is good and should be able to play more consistently and that’s not too much to ask for.
Don’t forget to check out our new segment: If The Season Ended Today
If The Season Ended Today
If The Season Ended Today–Our Beloved New York Football Giants would be in the playoffs–the fourth seed, and they’d face Detroit in the wildcard round at home; if they won, they’d play either Green Bay or San Francisco in the Divisional Round on the road. If they won that, they’d be in the NFC Championship game–which, could be at home only if Chicago managed to get there as well.
But the season doesn’t end today. There are seven games left. As always, at this time of year, who you beat is usually more important than total wins.
For example, if we beat Philly and Washington and beat Dallas twice, and lose to New Orleans, Green Bay and the Jets, we’d end up 10-6 and 5-1 in the division.
But we’d be assured the NFC East title.
That’s because the best Dallas could be is 10-6; but we’d have the tie-breaker by virtue of beating them twice.
Both Philly and Washington could only reach 9-7.
Beyond that, we’d be 5-1 in the division and the best any of the other three teams could be would be 3-3.
But if we lost to Dallas twice, then Dallas could be 12-4.
If we won the rest of our games, we’d be 11-5.
Even if Dallas lost another game and finished 11-5, they’d own the tie-breaker.
We’d have a good shot at a Wild Card, but you never know.
So by beating Dallas twice we can win the division with 10 wins; but we could lose to them twice and miss the playoffs with a record of 11-5.
If we beat Dallas twice and beat Washington–and lose to Philly, the Jets, New Orleans and Green Bay–then we’d be 9-7, 5-2 in the division.
Dallas could only be 3-3 in division, Philly could be 5-1 and Washington could at best be 3-3.
Dallas could be 10-6, so they’d have to lose another game and then we’d have the head-to-head tie-breaker against them.
Philly could also finish 10-6, so they’d have to lose another game and we’d be tied head-to-head, but Philly would have the divisional-record tie-breaker.
So Philly would have to lose 2 games, both to division teams, making them 9-7 and 3-3 in division and we’d have the divisional-record tie breaker.
Washington could at best be 9-7 and we’d be tied head-to-head, but we’d have the divisional-record tie-breaker.
Then there are many other scenarios–but none of them are as good as us simply winning our 4 remaining division games and locking up the NFC east.
That would happen on New Year’s Day against Dallas.
Happy New Year!
I think we can win 4 more games; I think we could win 5 more games.
And every game will be a hard game so they have to be up for each game.
We control our destiny.
Which is always a good place to be; you never want to rely on another team winning a game for you, especially teams that have “Bay” in their names.
–DAD/Bernie
Finishing
I’m not going to lie that win felt good. Not just because it was against the Patriots–okay who am I kidding that’s most of it–but it was also nice to see the team finish another game and finish the first half of the season with a 6-2 record. Not bad for a team that did nothing in the off season, has been plagued with injuries and has a mediocre second tier quarterback (if you can’t hear it, that last part was sarcastic) but the rest is true, expectations were not high for our Giants at the start of the season. Yet, here they are at 6-2, but could this winning record spell doom for the remainder of the season?
I had an interesting discussion with my father the day after the game, we were still basking in the glory of the big win, but then he mentioned that the Giants under Coughlin have started almost every season at 6-2 but have then collapsed down the stretch. I had to find out if that was true. It’s funny you remember the bad streaks, but you don’t remember them starting off so well. But it is true, in 5 of the last 7 seasons the Giants have started 6-2. However, their average record in the second half of the season is far less impressive at 3-5. Will history repeat itself this year or will the Giants finish strong? I am remaining cautiously optimistic because of one word—finishing.
Rematch
Last week’s game against the Dolphins falls under the category of ugly wins–it wasn’t pretty but we’ll take it. There’s not much else to say about it, other than the Giants will need to play better if they want to beat the Patriots in tomorrow’s rematch of Super Bowl XLII. Warning to my Red Sox/Patriots fans, the video portion of today’s post may bring back some unsettling memories, you may want to advert your eyes or put me on mute and pretend I’m saying nice things about our Pats.
A FAN DIVIDED 