The football season starts in the summer. The Giants start training camp at U Albany and every one's expectations are high. The preseason starts and the doubts start. With the doubts come the bickering. Eli becomes a hated QB, but it's only preseason, let's wait, and we do. The season starts with a loss in Dallas to the hated Cowboys. I put the Cowboys right there with the Red Sox, a bit lower due to the Cheerleaders but close to the Red Sox level. Week two brings the same, a loss to the Packers, in the Meadowlands, 0-2, this is going to be a long season. Then something happens, week three a win, then another and another. The Giants run off six straight wins including one in London. Hey, these guys may be real, bring on the Cowboys. OK, maybe not a great idea, a second loss to Dallas and only a shot as a wild card for the playoffs. This is the plight of a Giants fan. Just when you think and dare say out loud, they may do it, the Giants crumble. Counting the Dallas game, the Giants went on a 3-3 streak. Yes they were going to make the playoffs but like the past few years it would be a short playoff. Then halftime of the Buffalo game something happened. The Giants looked different the second half, Eli looked different the second half and the G-men pull off a win in rotten weather. Last game of the Season, New England. The Patriots, 15-0, have everything locked up for the post season, the talk all week was who they should play and who they should sit, they played the starters. The Giants, with out the cushion of a bye week, with nothing to gain played their starters. How they played. They looked like a team that could pull off a win till very late in the game, it was a loss but not one that hurt. The playoffs start with the Wild Card game in Tampa Bay. The Giants win. next the Cowboys, in Dallas. The Cowboys had a week off so QB Tony Romo went to Mexico with girlfriend Jessica Simpson. Would that be the Cowboys downfall? What happened yesterday was one of the great Playoff games in NFL history. The outcome of the game was not certain until on a forth and 11 at the 23 yard line R.W. McQuarters intercepted Romo's pass in the end zone with just seconds remaining on the clock, preserving a 21-17 Giants win.
Now I'm not saying the Giants will win the Super Bowl, or even get there for, that matter. I'm just happy that they won, and they beat the Cowboys. I haven't seen so many Cowboy shirts in a long time. The diehard Cowboy fans (sarcasm) have come out of the woodwork with that Dallas swagger. OK boys you can put those shirts away now. I do care what happens next week but I won't be too disappointed if the Packers win. The thought of a NFC Championship game on the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field between the Giants and Packers, break out the retro jerseys and the memories of the last time the Giants and the Packers met in a Championship game, Lombardi, Starr, Nitschke,Tittle, Gifford, Huff. Forty five years from now will we be saying Farve, Grant, Manning, Strahan. Go big blue.