Once again I will point out the 4th down play that changed the game and I am not talking about the two 4th quarter ones that the Giants failed to convert. With a minute and half to go in the 2nd quarter and the score 7-5 the Giants faced a 4th and 1 deep in Eagles territory. Once again the game announcers led by the #1 bias play by play guy of all time Joe Buck made sure everyone in the world knew that the Giants should kicked the field goal and go into halftime with the lead totally ignoring the fact there was still a minute and half left to go in the 2nd quarter.
Tom Coughlin who won the Super Bowl by being bold and aggressive decided to play it safe I had a bad feeling for the Giants from t hat point on.
When the Eagles marched down the field to kick their own Field Goal something that Joe Buck obviously thought was an impossibility I wrote in my notebook:
"GAME OVER"
More incredibly but predictably Joe Buck never went on to say that it might have been in the Giants best interest to show that they weren't scared and should have went for the throats of the Eagles instead of sending the message to the Eagles that they were fearful of failure and in turn giving the Eagles all the momentum. I will repeat this again, this is the NFL playoffs:
I was not surprised that the Eagles stuffed them on two 4th quarter 4th downs because it had already been established who was the team playing scared and who was the team who was playing to win.
I mentioned in my preview of the game that one of the few ways the Giants could lose is if Eli Manning played like "God" Favre and unfortunately for Giants fans he did. He was horrible. He made one good pass the entire day. As we are learning in the playoffs there are two things you need to win. A good defense and a mistake free Quarterback. It wasn't Delhomme bad, but it was awful.
I would also like to mention all of those talking heads who said immediately after Plaxico Burress went busting shots in the club that he would not be miss and who will now flip flop their opinions don't think I don't see you because I do.
I tell people this all the time in the end talent overrides everything. There is no such thing as addition by subtraction unless you can replace the person you are subtracting with someone equal or better. They never replaced Plaxico's talent and it was foolish to believe they would be better without him.
Who would have thought the NFC Championship game would be the Eagles vs. Cardinals in Arizona.
The Giants choked. Plain and simple. If they were to nominate biggest choke football teams of this season then New York easily takes the crown with the Titans finishing second. As im watching this Chargers vs. Steelers game I just remembered how they panel on CBS said that all of the favored teams have lost in these playoffs. Its gettin verrry interesting.