Well, not very. Considering he was already a first round Hall of Famer. In fact it’s downright depressing. Mostly because it means that he’ll want to play for another year now.
Also, was it just me or did Tom Coughlin look like a zombie?
Could you imagine Mike Shanahan in that weather?
I’m not sure it’s fitting, but it does seem as if the bad Brett is never all that far beneath the surface.
AHEM! Might you note post #1 over in the 5th Annual SDMB Early Super Bowl Pick Contest:
WOOT! 
[Danny Aiello in Hudson Hawk]
Can you fucking believe it!
[/DA in HH]
If the GIANTS insist on always playing this close, I am going to need a defibrillator. My heart can’t take another week of this.
I don’t know (or care) about coaches. Hell, I don’t even care about people talking shit online or around the water cooler. I just think it’s obnoxious as hell when I hear it coming from the “talking heads” on television. And yes, I have heard commentators call Eli “The Lesser” Manning. No, I don’t remember when/who it was (I almost want to say it was Joe Buck, but I tune out so much of what comes out of his mouth, I can’t be sure). Only that it bugs the shit out of me, and I hope I never hear it again.
Ugh. Eli and Strahan versus Bill Belichek…
I’m getting my deposit back on the kegs. Super Bowl’s cancelled at my house.
I honestly don’t think Eli turned any corner this post-season. In fact, I think his last three playoff games have pretty much been classic Eli; the Eli who already turned the corner during the 2005 comeback against the Broncos.
If that’s the case, then why isn’t he turning the ball over? Well, first off he lucked out of an easy interception in the red zone against the Packers. But what’s really doing it is the lack of penalties and the strong defense, which is allowing him to just take what the defense gives him. He’s always been quite good at that. When he feels like he has to force something, he kinda sucks. (Just like Favre; more on that later.)
I had that bad feeling in the first half of this game. Bad drops by Toomer and others, stupid penalties, let up a big play on defense; this was classic “bad Giants” football. Even the 2:00 drill fell short.
The third quarter was a bit of a mess with all the penalties and lead changes, so I couldn’t really get a feel for what was going to happen. Until the final play that is, when Brett “the chucker” Favre showed up. God damn that was a heart-warming moment to see him try to force a rainbow into triple coverage while under pressure. I knew right then that Favre would not win this game for the Packers, but that didn’t necessarily mean that the Giants would win.
Then in the fourth quarter, the good Giants showed up. Love that defense, love that running game. And Favre the chucker looked like he was cold, like he just wanted to get to the locker room. But then Tynes had to go and pull a Feeley, just to keep it exciting.
When it went to overtime, I didn’t really care who won the coin toss. Frankly, I kinda wanted to start on defense because the game was starting to look like a battle for field position. I had faith in Eli and Bradshaw (who looked way better than Grant, btw) getting at least to midfield before having to punt, but with the extreme cold a fumble is always a possibility. I felt better about the defense’s chances to force a 3 & out and the special team’s ability to return the punt inside the Packers 40, which is a much better place to start than your own 25.
Even if the Packers marched down the field and scored the game winner, I would have felt good about the fact that the Giants defense was on the field and so Big Blue had every possible chance to win in overtime. This was going to be a perfect example of why the sudden death format is good and proper no matter how it turned out. Teams who can’t get a stop from their defense don’t deserve fair ups anyway.
Mad props to Corey Webster, Justin Tuck, Kawika Mitchell and Steve Smith for stepping up big in the playoffs this year. Four down, one to go…
Congrats to the Giants and best of luck againt the Patriots
Dio, You let your hatred of the Packers allow you to be painted as clueless maroon…
Oh yeah, I forgot about how amazing the addition by subtraction has been. First no Tiki Barber, (who has to be kicking himself for retiring,) and then no Shockey. Now don’t get me wrong; I friggin’ love Shockey more than Madden loves Favre. But even I can see plain as day that Shockey being out has contributed greatly to Eli’s no-interceptions during these playoffs.
It feeds into allowing him to simply take what the defense gives him, instead of having to force the ball into Shockey. During those many forced Shockey passes, there was always a non-trivial chance that Shockey would make the wrong read and run the wrong option, sending Eli’s woulda-been-accurate pass straight into the arms of a defender while no blue jersey was even in the frame. Those always looked terrible, and people would get down on Eli, but I swear to god those were pretty clearly option routes that Shockey didn’t read correctly.
I want Shockey back next year and for the next five years, but I desperately want him to get better at reading coverages.
I was thinking of people who made their picks at the beginning of the seaon, but congrats all the same. If the Giants played a competitive game in week 17, I hope they can do a little better this time.
A Boston team vs a New York team makes it easy for ESPN, they’re used to covering that since that’s all they do the rest of the reason anyway.
I was rooting for the Packers, but I’ve been impressed with the Giants in the post-season. I have some for the Giants as an old school franchise, I mostly just tend to dislike New Yorkers and want to see their teams fail. But they really earned their way in.
I doubt they’d have made it this far if they rested their starters in week 17. Instead they gave us one of the most entertaining games all year. And now we get a rematch. Should be good.
Well, I have to say that the Packers appear to have beaten themselves before the game even started. I got completely confused by the first sequence of plays. The Packers from the beginning eschewed a power running game for various sleight-of-hand passing plays that in the long run got the nothing. Indeed, subtract one 90-yard bomb TD, and the Packers probably wouldn’t have sniffed overtime. Meanwhile, the Giants were establishing a very powerful running game, doing it the way you should on the frozen tundry, by getting their backs outside the tackles with a head of steam so that they could run over defenders who couldn’t get good traction for stopping the runner.
To me, it looked like the Packer coaches had decided that they had no chance running the ball against the Giants, and decided instead to resort to some sort of flim-flammery to overcome this supposed inability. And, when they DID run the ball, they tended to try to run “up the gut,” which is hard to do on a frozen field for precisely the same reason that it’s hard to tackle you out in the open field with a head of steam: you can’t get enough traction to make the quick cuts needed inside consistently.
The wind was blowing hard enough to make long passes inherently errant. The Giants recognized this, and stuck to relatively short passes, such as sideline hitches and slants. The Packers, not so much. Favre wasn’t significantly worse than Manning, other than the fact that he was intercepted twice, once for doing a typical Favre “force the ball into coverage you have no business trying to beat” throw (thank goodness it was promptly fumbled to the Pack for a net gain), and once by failing to throw the pass in a way that accounted for the wind drift to the left. But unlike the Giants, the Packer coaches put the game on Favre’s shoulders (they only called 13 running plays, IIRC!). Not surprisingly, in that weather, that was the last place it needed to be.
Lombardi was rolling over in his grave, I’m sure. <sigh> (Hell, he was probably clawing the dirt away to get out of it and come take over the job!!!) 
I’m another who was astonished by the Packer’s ineffectivness after their field goal early in the 4th quarter. At home, with the NFC championship on the line, they come up with pitiful yardage, no first downs, and then finish with a fatal interception. Absolutely brutal.
Favre is just friggin’ retarded sometimes.
I can’t believe he heaved that ball into triple coverage on the int-fumble recovery play.
Then, someone has to say to him, “all right, you got fired up there, but now it’s time to get back to playing right.”
The interception in overtime was a perfect example. The guy he was throwing to was covered. Ryan Grant was coming out of the back field on a delayed check-down. . .it is specifically designed to go to him if the receivers are covered, and Favre still tries to put it in there.
For as great as he’s been his whole career, I’m going to remember him for plays like that as much as games like he had at Oakland on Monday night a few years back, or the Monday nighter at Denver this year.
It’s like he just goes into full retard mode.
Well, Giants are playing very well; the Pats are playing a notch below where they were at mid-season. This matchup might be tougher than what the Bears could have given the Colts last year, if the Giants can hold form.
I didn’t see it as much different from the rest of the season. The first series was meant to get the offense in a rhythm, with realtively easy passes and a shot downfield, and a lot of movement.
What really stuck me about the Giants gameplan was that they were committed to the run. Even though both backs averaged under 4 yards a carry, they still ran the ball 37 times, more than 3 times the amount the Packers did. Now that’s commitment to the run, and it paid off in the end.
And, again, I didn’t find it a surprise. The Packers coaches did that often early in the season. To be honest, I thought it was poor coaching, but it wasn’t unprecedented. I think part of the blame also lies on the offensive line. Because of the Giant’s pass rush hype, they were on their heels all game and not getting a push at all. Kudos to the Giants D Line for that.
Generally, the Packers are a short passing, get the YAC, team.
Other than that, how’d you like the play Mrs. Lincoln?
Favre was horrible. Most of the season, he’s been accurate, putting the ball right where it needed to be to allow his receivers to make the catch, get the YACs, and keep it away from the DB’s. Manning did an outstanding job of doing just that in this game. Favre didn’t. His accuracy totally sucked. And he reverted back to old Favre, which was the most frustrating part.
As many problems as I had with the coaching staff, putting the game on Favre’s shoulders wasn’t one of them. I’m hoping, and I think he will, that McCarthy learns a lot from this game as a coach. He’s a new coach and he trusted his studs and put the game on the shoulders of his ProBowlers Favre, Harris and Kampman, which is not a bad plan. The problem was, it wasn’t working and he didn’t make the necessary adjustments. They needed to focus on the running game to help Favre. But, even more important, they needed to get Al Harris some help and adjust their blitz packages to get a pass rush. The lack of adjustments was what really hurt. But being a fan, I think he learned something from the game which will help him in what hopefully will be a long, succesful career coaching the Packers.
The Giants certainly deserved to win, and they played a great, disciplined game. And Manning impressed me with his accuracy. The Giants were the better team yesterday.
What chaps my hide is that I think the Packers are the better team, they just played like crap. And it wasn’t just one of them, the whole team made almost constant mistakes. The OLines poor run blocking, Favre’s inaccuracy and stupidity, the DLine’s lack of a good rush, Al Harris’ thuggery, stupid penalities, poor play calling, and inability to get a fumble recovery all killed them.
But, in the end, I’m excited for next year, because I think they’ll have another shot at the Super Bowl. I don’t see them as one of those “lightning in a bottle” teams that gets lucky one year, but rather as a young team with a young coach. But I tend to be more of a fan than a dipshit hater like Dio, so I look on the bright side.
Nothing warms the cockles of my heart like knowing…KNOWING that the Packers aren’t going to the superbowl BECAUSE of Brett Favre…ah. It’s like a restful sleep after months of exhaustion, cuddled up with my pillow, dreaming of someone else’s misery.
I don’t watch many (as in none except the times they play the Packers) Giants games, but he really impressed me. Only having newspaper accounts of games (I hate pregame talk), I had a bad impression of Manning, but last night he was accurate, smart, and only a tiny bit whiny. He looked good last night.
The Giants didn’t WOW me. They played a very good, very disciplined, old school football game. They didn’t give up much on defense, and they commited to the run. But I didn’t see anything that made me think they were an elite team. But they were very good.
His first interception (which they lucked out one getting the fumble) just killed me. IIRC, he had some pressure, eluded it going left, cocked his arm and looked like he was ready to throw, across his body, deep and late over the middle. It would have been classic Favre-stupid throw. But then he stopped, didn’t make the throw. For a second, I was thrilled because it showed he wasn’t going to make the mistakes that plague his career. But then he made a move, and, instead of throwing it away, he threw an interception. So for one brief, shining second, I had a vision of a quarterback with Favre’s arm, ability to read defenses, and usual accuracy, but also with discipline. It was a truly beautiful second.
And then reality hit and Favre was Favre again. sigh
They looked great in the second half. I had mentally prepared for the loss when Tynes was lining up for the kick, only to have him miss and give me back the one thing I had missed. Hope. Unfortunately, Favre ruined it for me.
I would have said mad props to Burress and Manning, who impressed me. Burress, although he’s a punk, gave Al Harris a whipping and Manning played with a discipline I would love to see Favre have. Pierce (is that the guy?) impressed me also.
All said, the Giants played better, and certainly deserved to win. Kudos to them and their fans.
Sadly for me the Giants were the better team, the smarter team, Eli was the better QB, Favre played badly, they abandoned the run too early and they had some really stupid penalties.
Still, a great season, way more than I expected at the beginning.
Congratulations to the Giants! Congratulations to the Patriots as well, since they seem to be ignored in the last page or so.
As a Packer fan, I was worried once I started hearing the forecasts. They played like crap against the Bears in miserable weather, so unlike a lot of the experts, I didn’t think the extreme cold would be to their advantage. I was more worried when the teams came out of the locker room and most of the Packers were in short sleeves. I figured it would give them about a 2 minute psychological advantage at the beginning of the game. From there they would just be more cold and miserable than they needed to be. Worse, they would be burning more energy just keeping warm. It might be minor in the grand scheme of things, but it was also just a bad idea.
Overall I thought it was a very brutal game on several levels. The weather, the hits, the penalties, all brutal. There was plenty of thuggery from both Burress and Harris, although one poster is so jaded that he blinds himself to seeing both sides. There were bad calls both ways too. I remembered them calling a hands to the face on Harris when Burress about knocked him over with a push off and got a reception. That’s not to say that Harris didn’t get his hands in Burress’s face that play, but if the play continues, the push off should be illegal too.
I really thought the Packers would get on track after the 90 yard pass play to Driver. (How cool was it seeing the “slow, possession receiver” outrun the Giants secondary, btw?) Unfortunately it never really happened. The Giants slowly took control and ground the game out.
To the Giants fans here, you will have some extra people on your side in two weeks. After the game, all the Packer fans I talked to said they would be cheering for the Giants against the Patriots. Good luck to you all!
The last play in the third that I described wasn’t an interception. I’m almost positive you know this, and were using my quote as a springboard for your own separate reflection. I just wanted to clarify in case you thought I was talking about the interception-fumble-first down. (Which wasn’t triple coverage, as somebody upthread thought.)