Columns

Mystery of Giants hard one to solve

By JOHN ROMANO
Published January 29, 2008

ADVERTISEMENT [AP photo] Giants defensive end Michael Strahan, right, laughs with linebacker Antonio Pierce during practice last week.

PHOENIX -- Never before has a case such as this come along.

Not in the NFC. Not in the Super Bowl era. No team has ever taken such an unlikely route to glory.

Three consecutive victories on the road against division champions in the playoffs? After going .500 and toying with mutiny last season? And starting 0-2 this season? And losing five of eight home games?

Surely, the New York Giants are history's strangest contender.

And now you want to know how they've pulled it off.

You could start with the numbers, but they offer few clues.

Scoring was up ever so slightly from last season, but the Giants had more turnovers, and Eli Manning's passer rating went down. The defense had a lot more sacks, but it forced fewer turnovers and gave up more touchdowns.

Clearly, the answer is not hiding in the statistics.

So you head back to September. Back to the days when the New York newspapers were sharpening their headlines after the Giants began the season with back-to-back losses.

"Woe and Two"

"Gloom & Doom"

"No Defense For Big Blue Mess"

"Nobody expected us to be in the playoffs," linebacker Antonio Pierce said Monday. "That's fine. It's like I said after the Green Bay game: Don't become a believer yet. Wait another six days."

By halftime of Week 3, it had gotten worse. The Giants were losing 17-3 to the Redskins and appeared 30 minutes away from utter chaos.

Yet the Giants discovered something that afternoon. They learned, or maybe remembered, something about themselves. New York took a 24-17 lead in the fourth quarter then stopped the Redskins on four consecutive plays at the goal line to win a game - and possibly save a season.

"That was a strong part of getting us going. We won six straight games following that," coach Tom Coughlin said. "The boost it provided our players was very evident. I don't think you can overestimate the importance of that game."

From the moment that goal-line stand ended, the Giants have owned the closing minutes of games. Including the postseason, New York is 7-1 in games decided by a touchdown or less.

But most teams have a similar moment at some point in the season. It doesn't send them off on an NFL season record 10-game winning streak on the road. It doesn't usually lead to three consecutive postseason upsets.

So you begin looking into this theory of addition by subtraction. This strange supposition that losing a Pro Bowl running back and a Pro Bowl tight end somehow made the Giants better.

You know the names. You know their stories. Tiki Barber is New York's all-time leader in rushing yards and, for the past decade, was the charismatic face of this franchise. Jeremy Shockey is one of the leading receivers in team history and one of the most outspoken New York athletes in years.

And, yet, the Giants are finally in the Super Bowl a year after Barber retired and a month after Shockey went on injured reserve with a broken leg. Is there a connection? A conspiracy theory?

It is true Barber and Shockey were the two players most critical of Coughlin in recent seasons. Both suggested New York had lost games because the coach on the opposite sideline had been shrewder.

Barber complained that Coughlin had taken the fun out of football, and Shockey was known to be obsessed with the number of passes thrown his way.

The idea among Giants fans is Barber's departure took a distraction out of the locker room and Shockey's absence has taken pressure off Manning.

As conclusions go, this one seems to take a rather large leap. But the facts are, the Giants running game did not suffer when Barber left, and the hottest streak of Manning's career coincided with Shockey's injury.

The sniping in the locker room has cooled considerably, and Coughlin has made an effort to lighten up.

"He let us see his teeth this year. He smiles. He actually has cheekbones," Pierce said. "He still has the same rules, but he's let us see him as a person. That makes it easier to take when he's yelling at you."

Still, no one considered the Giants to be serious contenders. Not even at 10-5 and with a wild card clinched.

It took a 38-35 loss to the Patriots in what should have been a meaningless game in Week 17 before the world began looking at New York differently.

Could it be that simple?

A goal-line stand and better chemistry?

A momentum-building loss?

"There's really no magical answer," Pierce said. "We knew we were better than that, and we just had to prove it."

Maybe Pierce is right. Maybe you are looking too hard for clues.

Maybe, instead of trying to figure the Giants out, you should just appreciate them.

John Romano can be reached at romano@sptimes.com.

[Last modified January 29, 2008, 01:24:41]