Dr. Giganto

OK, so I went back and watched what happened on my DVR...

Eli completes a pass to Amani Toomer with 8:24 remaining, and the clock stops, although it shouldn't.

When the play clock gets down to 8, the game clock starts counting down again. Three seconds pass, and Tom Coughlin calls over the referees, who blow the whistle to stop play and come over to the sidelines. They confer with Tom Coughlin about the clock being stopped, and realize their mistake. The referees then reset the play clock to 25 (which is what they always do when there is a referee's stoppage or coming out of a timeout) and let the game clock run down to 8:11, when they blow their whistle to resume play. Next time we see the play clock, it is at 17 seconds, with 8:05 remaining in the game. So, 23 seconds of play clock have elapsed, but only 19 seconds of game clock.

The Giants could have let the clock continue to run, but they chose to snap the ball three seconds later, at 8:02. In actuality, the game clock should have read 7:58. The mistake cost the Patriots 4 seconds. In a game that takes 3600 seconds to play, 4 seconds is pretty inconsequential.

I also went back to make sure that what happened at 1:28 also happened the way I remembered it. And yes, in fact, it did. Jacobs hits the ground with 1:31 and the referees run in to spot the ball and try to determine if it is a first down or not. The clock SHOULD be stopped, but it continues running for another 9 seconds, down to 1:22. The referees then spot the ball and signal for a first down. Fox goes to a replay, and there appears to be a long break in the action while the replay is shown. It is possible that during this time, the referee was asking to put some time back on the clock. Then they end the replay, and the referee still hasnt doen anything, and as soon as the clock is reset to 1:28, he moves out of the way and blows the whistle, signaling for the clock to begin running again