A Dink, a Dunk and a Funk

Dink, 5-yard completion, Brady to Welker….dunk, completion for 8 yards to Hernandez, just short of a first down….whoa….16 yard completion to a wide receiver for a first down. Seriously, they ain’t so baaaad. The longest Pats reception was for 21 yards to, of all people, Ochocinco. The Pats didn’t really stretch the field. They really couldn’t scare anybody with that popgun offense.

Eli and the rest of the red, white and blue didn’t really have to do too much. If they had to do more, they probably could have done more. And yes, the Pats receivers dropped a few passes and Gronk was playing hurt, but still, Brady and the Pats ain’t scaring anybody.

The Pats couldn’t really run the ball either nor show me an inspiring runner on that team. Woodhead was their biggest running threat and he did pretty well but he scored when Brady had just oodles of time for some reason, probably just that Fewell out-thunk himself. Why they dropped their best pass rushers into coverage makes no sense to me.

I’m happy the Giants won but, aside from the Manning to Manningham connection, there weren’t really any scintillating plays, or calls for that matter. The game was played like a championship game by two coaches who knew each other better than anyone else on the field. It was a game for football aficionados.

Not that it wasn’t an interesting game if you like that kind of thing but, really, I would’ve welcomed a few chances taken somewhere along the line. Surely one or two shots down the field wouldn’t have hurt anything. But that’s not who the Giants are these days, nor Eli either.

Eli’s great at that QB position. He’s all grown up. But he had just enough pizzazz when he needed it in that fourth quarter with time winding down. That pass to Manningham was perfect. That’s all you can say. And he wasn’t about to give anything away. Eli did a pretty good job of dinking and dunking himself.

But there was no pass rush as there had been in early ’08. I kept wondering how many sacks Rex Ryan would’ve got out of that group of the G-Men. It was a very conservatively-played defensive game too. The Giants played it as if they knew they were the better team and, if they just didn’t give anything away, they would win the game.

But they really shouldn’t have been so sure of themselves. Once again, I thought the Giants got lucky. How many Giants fumbles didn’t amount to anything? There were at least two, one by Cruz on which New England had too many men on the field and one by Nicks that got covered up by Hynoski.

But it all counts. Hynoski got there first by paying attention and running like hell after the ball. And procedural-type penalties happen to even the best of coaching staffs. All in all though, when you consider the New England drops, the meaningless fumbles and the Brady safety on the Pats first play, the Giants had good fortune lined up on their sidelines that Super day.

The 49ers game was scarier than the Super Bowl. But brain farts and fumbles won it for the Giants that day as well. It wasn’t just Eli and that defensive line that won this championship. It was truly everybody and yes, it was everybody just doing their job, as every Giants player seemed to mention in the aftermath of things.

And, speaking of aftermath, was there ever a more gracious winner than these Giants? Eli, Justin Tuck and just about every Giant was classy in their commentary about the game, about the season, and about their opponents. One notable exception was Brandon Jacobs’ harangue after the game but I’ll forgive him for now. After all, it was the “best of all time” Tom Brady and the brainiac Belichick that the G-Men beat on Sunday.

It’s unfortunate that so much time was devoted to whether Eli is truly an elite quarterback or not. Happily, Eli backed himself up by winning this game. God knows what things could’ve been like around here if the Patriots beat him.

For now, everybody’s happy, even me, but it wasn’t long after this game was in the books that all the prognosticators came out with all their prognostications. Who’ll be dropped next year, whose contracts are expiring, which teams will the Giants have to look out for next year?

I know two guys who’ll be coming back. They’d be Jason Pierre-Paul and Victor Cruz. Would the G-Men be here today without either of them? I don’t think so. They were both great, not just great for a rookie but truly among the best in the league. And they came out of nowhere, just like these Giants.

I hated that the Giants let Steve Smith and the tight end Boss go. I hated that they couldn’t have given in to Osi a little bit. But, in the final analysis, Jerry Reese, the GM, is the man, once again, maybe even more so than he was in 2007.

It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken. Despite all the injuries these Giants suffered through this year, Reese’s players emerged as the best. Look around the roster, there’s that punter Weatherford and that Ballard tight end and that center wasn’t too shabby either. How about Devin Thomas? Oncce again, the man seems as if he knows something the rest of us just don’t.

I guess, like the rest of his team, Jerry Reese was just doing his job. But he really did one hell of a job….twice. This Super Bowl is as much his as anybody’s. Coughlin doesn’t have very many bad alternatives on that bench, or on specials, or anywhere.

But now it’s all over for 2011-2012. Now this amazing season and Giants run-the-table finish has run its course. Soon it’ll be just a memory, even if it will be one of the best ones ever.