I Was Wrong

Suntan Superman

WC's Resident Samoan

I've been working on this for a little bit... but I was wrong. At the beginning of the year I had little to no faith in the Giants. But can you blame me? Eli Manning was a streaky QB. Brandon Jacobs was the new starter after Tiki Barber left. Tom Coughlin's water was on boil. The defense looked sketchy after seemingly stretching to sign LB Kawika Mitchell and moving DE Mathias Kiwanuka to OLB(which subsequently worked quite well). I'd be lying if I said I was impressed with their Secondary. Strahan was threatening retirement. Spags was the new defensive coordinator.

As far as the season went I have to say in Week 2 (0-2) I was confident in my prediction. They played pretty awful in those weeks. And for the most part during the early goings of the season it seemed like their goose was cooked. Then lord knows what happened. They ended up fighting for and eventually claiming a wild card spot. And even then I was still thoroughly unimpressed(but if you know me I'm not easily impressed). I had my doubts heading into the playoffs, they did what my father so affectionately calls backed into the playoffs meaning they lost and made the playoffs, not much momentum.

They play Tampa Bay first. I pegged the Giants for a win even without momentum. Namely because I had no idea that Tampa Bay was even a playoff team. No surprise there. Then comes @Dallas. Giants fans so kindly reiterated the fact that they hadn't lost a road game since they lost in Dallas the first week of the season. Again impressive but not playoff impressive to me. Even being as Anti-Cowboys as I am I found it hard to pick the Giants. Pretty sure after looking at the stats you can see why. The Cowboys seemingly beat them in every category except the one that matters the most.... the score.

In the week leading up to the NFC Championship game I couldn't find it. There wasn't much there. I looked at tape after tape after tape. I saw no reason the Giants should've even beat the Cowboys nevertheless defeat the Packers. Again Giants fans were no strangers to their apparent road winning streak which became impressive after redeeming the first loss. However I couldn't see it. I couldn't viably see the Giants walking out of Lambeau field winning the game. I was there as most of you know, and I found it. This Giants team was just that, a team. Watching them even when they were sloppy just glancing over to the sidelines and you saw everyone helping each other. Something that couldn't be seen on the Packers sidelines. Alas, they allowed the Packers to stay put and packed their bags for Glendale, AZ.

Week 17 again. Two of Parcells finest, Coughlin and Belichick, meeting head to head for the second time this season. I'll spare the Patriots fans the excruciating details of the events leading up and during the game, to say the least they again played as a team and defeated what might've been the best team I'll see in my lifetime. Walking away from the University of Phoenix Stadium 17-14 victors over the now 18-1 Patriots, they had done what I thought was impossible. After picking them fourth in the NFC East they went on and won the Super Bowl. The only thing left to say is this... I was wrong.

Blitzkrieg

Administrator

I was dead wrong on the Giants. I mean.. I thought they would be a possible playoff team, wild card team, and when I found out they'd be playing Tampa in the first round, I just figured they'd be able to get it done.. but the next week at Dallas I didn't think they had much of chance, and at Green Bay I REALLY didn't think they had much of a chance.. I was a little more optimistic with them playing the Pats in the Super Bowl, because.. 1. They played well against them the first go 'round 2. I finally bought into the hype that they could be a team of destiny and 3. I felt like the Pats should have lost a good game or two during the regular season.. so they were due to lose one eventually..

Now, did I really believe the Giants could get it done? I don't know.. After the first half I thought they had a good shot, but the way the Pats rolled down the field on the first drive definitely scared the shit out of me. I said, "Oh God, here we go.. "

..and then the front four of the Giants stepped up HUGE and Eli got it done on the final drive.

Twist of Lemon

Yeah, I didn't think The Giants would make it that far or even win the superbowl like most people. Infact in my playoff predictions I had them lossing pretty handedly to Tampa Bay believing Garcia would play well enough along with there defense to win, well Galloway was a non factor and the front seven knocked Garcia down seemingly every play he droped back for.

The only playoff game I can really take credit for was the Cowboys game, where most of my friends and I pretty much agreed Romo would choke. Green Bay I thought was a lock for the Packers and Favre, wrong again. And as much I hated the Patriots fans and wanted to see there team lose, I didn't even think it would be close in the superbowl after Plax mouthed off. (I guess its only when a AFC team mouths off that they care enough to give a whoopin ~_~)

I'm still not completely sold on Eli, he had a great strech of games but everybody putting Eli in the top 5 QBs in the leauge all of a sudden makes me scratch my head. I guess a superbowl makes people forget he had the worst statistical year ever in his career before his play off run. I hope he keeps it up though, its just alittle early to proclaim him as great.

Dr. Giganto

Sports Moderator

Well, like an idiot, I bought into the whole "Tiki's gone, so they're gonna suck" stuff before the season. Which means that I totally ignored several facts about the team (which has been together for a few years now) that I learned from watching them every week for the last few years. Namely:

They have probably the most underrated O-line in football. Maybe they're not as great as the Colts line, or the Patriots (yes, they had a poor game in the SB...but it happens...), but they were pretty darn good.

The loss of Luke Petitgout was not as big as some people made it out to be. Petitgout sucked, and Diehl had experience playing tackle, both in college and the NFL. I should have known it wouldn't have made a difference.

The Giants run defense is surprisingly good. They may not be big name guys, but Fred Robbins and Barry Cofield are surprisngly competent DTs. Antonio Pierce was good enough to pick up any runners who got past the line, and Gibril Wilson was a hard hitter who could take down any runners who get to the third level (past the D-line and the LBs).

Justin Tuck is really good. I knew he was good. Most Giants fans saw him play really well in his limited playing time prior to this season. While people were fretting about Strahan's "retirement", I should have known that even if he did retire, Tuck would step up and fill his shoes pretty well. Instead, Strahan stayed, and Tuck had a breakout year.

Soft schedule. When the Giants went 8-8 the year before, they played the AFC South, which included two REALLY good teams (Colts and Jags) and a team on the rise (Titans). This year, they played the AFC East, which was one historically good team and three AWFUL teams. In 2006, they played the NFC South, which was one very good team (Saints), two decent teams (Panthers and Falcons w/ Vick), and one team with a really good Defense (Tampa Bay). This year, they played the NFC North, which was the Packers and three shitty teams. The Giants "first place finish" games (the games on the schedule that were determined by how they finished the year before) in 2006 were the Seahwaks and Bears, both of whom won their divisions, both won at least one playoff game, and the Bears went to the Super Bowl. The Giants "third-place finish" games this year were the Vick-less Falcons (4-12) and the 49ers (5-11)

Brandon Jacobs is good. OK, he had some problems with injuries, but when he was healthy, he played great. He ran for 1,000 yards in basically 10 games. Only Adrian Peterson had more yards per game played. Most people looked at him, saw how big he was, and assumed "Oh, he must be really slow". In fact, all my friends who are Jets fans said that. But then he ripped off that 50-yard run against Buffalo, and everyvody was like "Wait...was that Jacobs???"

And honestly, I think if you replayed the 2007 NFL playoffs 10 more times, the Giants would not have won the Super Bowl any of those 10 times. It was just a perfect storm. They beat three teams that I think were clearly better than them, by a combined 10 points. This was just one of those years when the best team did not win.

Blitzkrieg

Administrator

Yes, but they certainly played well enough to win all of those games.. so even though they might not be as talented and even though they'd probably lose to those teams more than they'd win, they played well enough when it counted and deserve all the praise they've gotten and that Super Bowl championship.

Dr. Giganto

Sports Moderator

Oh, you're right...Good NFL teams are generally so closely matched that if you give them enough head-to-head match-ups, the "worse" team will win, and actually do so fairly often. Just a guess, I would say 35%-40% of the time. This was just a case where the better team lost 3 times in a row.

The odds of a 60-40 underdog winning three times in a row is about 10-to-1. Not great odds, but certainly not insurmountable. And the Giants surmounted it, I guess.