That’s how I would describe the Giants game yesterday. For three quarters, both teams plodded their way to a 13-13 tie. The Giants amounted six sacks but you never got the impression they were harassing Carson Palmer, except on the very first series of the game. Meanwhile, the Giants line wasn’t giving up a sack all day but the Giants offense seemed to be giving an injury riddled Bengals defense way too much respect. Other than two nice pass plays to Kevin Boss, the Giants weren’t attacking down the field as they usually like to do.
In the fourth quarter, it started to get interesting. The Giants elected to take a FG on fourth and one from the Bengals’ eight (the right call IMO) to break a 13-13 tie. Palmer then led his team down the field, with a perfectly thrown scoring strike to TJ Houshmandzadeh into excellent coverage with four mintues and change left. Safety James Bulter was in the right place to knock the ball away but missed it.
Then came the excitement. Manning, usually at his best in the final staza, didn’t dissapoint. He matched Palmer by leading his team down the field (with a little help from Derrick Ward who again excelled) and fired a short TD pass to Kevin Boss to take the lead again. It was Boss’ third catch of the day (and season). It was great to see the TE in the passing game, and he really demonstrates the saying “soft hands”.
It was almost predicatable that Palmer would lead his team down the field for a tying score, setting up the dramatic OT. A big, third down knock-away by Sam Madison to prevent a first down allowed the Giants to get the ball a second time in OT. Two passes from Manning, the first perfectly dropped in to Burress for 28 yard then to a tiptoeing Toomer for 31, set up the chip shot game winner by John Carney. Carney has been quite the pickup, going 4-4 yesterday and 7-7 9-9 overall. His directional kickoffs have also been very impressive. The Giants have an interesting decision with Lawrence Tynes.
The overall mood of this win was sure we won, but it was the Bengals and the effort was subpar. Some words of wisdom. The Bengals are a professional football team that gets paid to play. They were 0-2 and desperately wanted to avoid an 0-3 start. The Giants aren’t going to play an “A” game very week, and they certainly didn’t on Sunday. But you have to be impressed with Manning’s late game heroics again and the defense stopping the Bengals on their only possession in the OT.
