By Adam Cancryn
The New York Giants are... something. Good, bad, or somewhere in between, we might never know.
The NFL isn't like those other elitist sports, which spend a grueling season teasing out the "best" and "most talented" teams for the year-end tournament.
No, this is Amurrica's sport, where all that matters is who pulls their bootstraps up the highest, and whether said bootstrap pulling coincides with the playoffs. The team that gets hot at the right time can take home the trophy, no matter its past performance.
And for that, the New York Giants should be grateful.
The Giants team that throttled the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Wild Card game, 24-2, are the same Giants that were dead in the water just four weeks ago. The same Giants that managed just 10 points against the cellar-dwelling Washington Redskins. The same Giants that finished last in the league in rushing yards and 29th in stopping the pass, and inspired a pessimistic eulogy on this very site. At the time, it was appropriate, given that the Giants were often the only New York team playing worse defense than the Knicks.
But all that doesn't matter now, because on Sunday, the Giants shut down two all-pro receivers, racked up 172 yards on the ground and turned in as complete a game as they've played all year. They will now play the Packers in the divisional round, past performance be damned.
We can certainly identify the plays that determined this game-- the two fourth-and-inches stops; Hakeem Nicks' weaving 72-yard touchdown; Brandon Jacobs' 34-yard dash-- but we're not any closer to understanding just how good the Giants are. They executed plays on both sides of the ball against the Falcons that New York couldn't have imagined pulling off just a few short weeks ago.
Was that really Jacobs breaking off highlight-reel runs? Before Sunday, his longest run involved his mouth and some choice words off the field. Was that really Corey Webster, Antrel Rolle & Co. clamping down on the Falcons' top receivers? Tony Romo rolled up 610 yards and six touchdowns against that squad over two December games. Even Nicks and fellow wideout Mario Manningham emerged from hiding this week, taking considerable weight off of Victor Cruz's shoulders.
As hard as it was to believe, it happened, and now the Giants travel to Green Bay, and now we have to consider the possibility of 2008-like Super Bowl run. Analysts will spend the coming week breaking down matchups and game history and intangibles, but the reality is that nobody's got any clue what's coming. The Giants could take a wrecking ball to their opponent for the second consecutive week, or end the season like they started it, with a whimper.
All that's guaranteed is that, in a league as volatile as the NFL, the schizophrenic Giants fit right in.
0 comments:
Post a Comment