E-GIANTS
Dave Klein was the Giants' beat writer
for The Star-Ledger from 1961 to 1995.
He is the author of 26 books and he is one of
only four sportswriters to have covered all the Super Bowls.
Dave has allowed TEAM GIANTS to reprint some of his articles.

AT THE END OF A VERY QUITE TEXAS NIGHT, THE GIANTS ARE THE ONES GOING TO GREEN BAY

They weren't exactly the Twelve Angry Men, but the dozen Pro Bowl nominees on the Dallas Cowboys stood on the sidelines dumbfounded as the final seconds ticked away Sunday night, as they watched the Giants cavort on their field, in their house.

Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, stood frozen on the sidelines, staring off into some personal wilderness where nothing comes out right and where justice is never realized.

The Cowboys, those self-aggrandized members of America's Team, had just been mugged by the tough kids from the New York area, the ones who managed to get just a single player onto the Pro Bowl roster, the team that wasn't even good enough to win the NFC East championship.

In fact, they beat the NFC East champs, the same team that had beaten them twice during the season, and the more fitting end was that the Cowboys' season closed against the same team and in the same place where it had started - in Texas Stadium against the Giants, the team they beat, 45-35, in that opening night game way back on Sept. 9.

It was 21-17, and the Giants have played in only a few more exciting, nerve-jangling games in their history. They withstood the fearsome offense of the Cowboys. They withstood a late rally and a gritty threat. They somehow found a way to keep their house safe from the barbarians.

They won, and next Sunday they will be in Green Bay to face the Packers for the right to go to Super Bowl XLII as the NFC representative.

Imagine that.

All the elements were there across the field. Tony Romo, the Celebrity Quarterback; Terrell Owens, the strange but enormously talented wide receiver; the 12 Pro Bowl players who threw that in the faces of the poor, downtrodden Giants; the bantam owner who tries to manage everything in his world and everyone else's, Jerry Jones.

There was a running back who hit the line with the force of a runaway locomotive, Marion Barber III. There was, arguably, the best defensive player around, DeMarcus Ware. There were all those stars, all those guys wearing the silver-and-blue, all those people in the stands dressed in pure white to emulate the major color of the uniforms of their heroes.

And then there were the Giants.

"Doesn't this team remind you of 1990?" asked former Pro Bowl linebacker Carl Banks, who was a member of that last Giant team to win a Super Bowl. "You know, nobody did anything spectacular. They just played hard, did the right thing at the right time and stuck together as a team. It was all about that, all about team, just like these guys."

Indeed, the similarities are shocking. Just a bunch of guys doing their job, taking the best shots of the other guys - often guys from a better team - shrugging them off and smiling and then punching them in the nose.

Eli Manning, who might finally have convinced all but the most hard-headed that he is going to be the Giants' quarterback for a long time, completed 12 of 18 passes for 163 yards and two touchdowns. Not a mind-shattering performance, but there were no interceptions involved, and when all the statistics were added, he finished with a 132.4 QB rating.

"He managed the game well," said head coach Tom Coughlin. "He was clutch. He was poised and he made the right decisions."

Yeah, coach, and he didn't make any mistakes.

The offensive line wasn't at its best. Manning was sacked three times for 23 yards. But when the blocks had to be made, they were. When a linebacker looping around a defensive end and showing up in Eli's grill suddenly appeared, he was promptly wiped out. "We did what we had to do," said guard Rich Seubert. "It was our kind of game."

Indeed, the Giants made it their kind of game, and nothing was as definitive of that as the Cowboys’ final, frantic, frustrated charge late in the fourth quarter. The game was on the line. It was the time when champions and also-rans are created.

The Giants had the ball on their 12-yard line after a long Dallas drive ended with a punt. But in three plays they lost eight yards, and Jeff Feagles had to punt it away. Oops, it was returned eight yards to the Giants’ 48 by wide receiver Patrick Crayton, who spent the week firing bulletin board salvos at the Giants, and especially at running back Brandon Jacobs.

Hey, a team with that kind of offensive firepower should have no trouble moving 48 yards, right? And it was 48 yards the Cowboys needed, because the Giants held a 21-17 lead and a field goal would have been suicidal. There would not be enough time to get another chance. But listen, these were the Cowboys, with Romo and T.O. and Barber and those huge, hulking offensive linemen, you know? The Giants were about to get squashed.

Uh-huh. On third and three Romo, under pressure, under-handed a shovel pass to tight end Jason Witten for 18 yards to the Giants' 22. And now, just the way Banks remembered his team, the fire began to glow and it soon became an incendiary force. On first down tackle Marc Colombo was induced into a false start. Now it was first and 15 and Romo to Witten got four. Now it was second and 11 and Romo to Witten was incomplete. On third and 11 Romo went for Crayton in the end zone and he couldn't handle it.

And finally, with the close showing 16 seconds ' a big, fat 0:16 ' Romo sent three wide receivers downfield - Crayton, the incredibly talented T.O. and veteran Terry Glenn.

"Glenn was the only one who got single coverage," he said. "I didn't really have a choice or the time to look around."

He threw. By the time the ball got near Glenn, there were three defensive backs clustering around him, all a by-product of the nickel back defense. The ball was picked off by reserve corner R.W. McQuarters while safeties James Butler and Gibril Wilson shielded Glenn from the ball.

It was over. The clock showed 0:09 and Eli took a knee, the final gun sounded, and the people who ran out onto the field celebrating were Giant fans. All the Cowboy fans, clad in white, filed out into the night. The impossible had happened, the Cowboys had been eliminated and the Giants, the team they had beaten twice during the season, was headed to Green Bay.

Sometimes, you know, if you wait long enough, the unexpected but overdue actually happens.

Check out Dave's website at E-GIANTS where you can subscribe to his newsletters which run much more frequently than what is available here.
- Team Giants

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