John Delach

The Giants 2008 Improbable Playoff Season

John Delach

October 2012

 Coach Coughlin appeared on his WNBC show on Sunday morning. Sports announcer, Bruce Beck asked him what he told his team about playing in the NFC Championship Game? Coughlin replied with a smile on his face, “I told them that if you win this game, you’ll be something special. If you lose, you’re another team just like the rest.”

I liked the look on his face and how loose he seemed to be. I had my hopes and my doubts. Michael drove down from Connecticut with his wife Jodie, their two sons, Drew, Matty and little Samantha. The boys had on their Giant Jerseys and Sammy was dressed in her Giant cheerleader outfit. We watched the Patriots easily beat the San Diego Chargers despite Tom Brady throwing three interceptions.

The Pats were now 18-0 and only the NFC Champion team stood between them and perfection. They didn’t beat the 14 point-spread winning the game by nine points. They didn’t beat the spread the week earlier, but only bettors should take comfort in this. All you have to do is review the outcome of Bill Belichick coached big games to realize how cruel the Patriots can be. The other teams never had a chance, but Coach Belichick’s teams engineered final scores that were close enough so that the teams’ fans actually believed that with just a couple of coulda, woulda and shouldas their team would have beaten the Pats. “We came so close. If Joe had done this, or Bill hadn’t done that…” fuheddaboudit

And now with the added incentive to have a perfect season, nobody, I say nobody will give the NFC Champion team a chance. This then is what the Giants will face if they beat the Packers. And so, we gathered to watch the game about to be played on the famous frozen tundra of Lambeau Field.

The night was clear, but frigid. Coach Coughlin’s face was a measure of the temperature. By game time, it was really red and, as the game progressed, his forehead and cheeks increased in color until they were so red, that shades of purple infiltrated his face. He looked as if he was about to explode.   

Eli began the game well and the team played like wild men on offense and defense dominating the Packers on both sides of the ball. Even so, Green Bay held Big Blue at bay forcing them to settle for two field goals and a 6 to 0 lead.

Their quarterback, Bret Favre, and his receiver, Donald Driver, turned a short pass into a 90-yard touchdown putting the Packers in the lead. The action went back and forth as the lead changed hands two more times until the teams found themselves tied at 20 points each. The Giants remained the aggressor but Giants kicker, Laurence Tynes, missed two field goals in the fourth quarter, the first from 43 yards, the second from 36 yards with seconds left on the clock.

The Packers won the toss in overtime and selected to receive the kickoff. Fortunately, for our side, quarterback, Favre, promptly threw an interception to Giants defensive back, Corey Webster. After the Giants were stopped on third down at the Packer 29 with five yards to go, normally, it would be Coach Coughlin’s decision what to do on fourth down; kick a field goal, punt the ball back to the Packers or go for a first down. Instead, Tynes made the decision for him by sprinting onto the field, before Coughlin decided what he wanted to do.

Michael Eisen, writing for Giants.com reported that Tynes said, “I went out on the field and I didn’t wait for him to say, ‘Go kick.’ This way he would have had to pull me off the field if he didn’t want me to kick it.”

Luckily, our coach accepted Tynes’ cheeky move and let him kick.

Eisen added, “Jeff Feagles, the Giants’ punter and holder, figured he’d have to perform one of those duties on fourth down – he just didn’t know which one. ‘The next thing you know I saw Lawrence running on the field and I thought, ‘Well I guess he (Coughlin) must have said go for it.”

 The coach said later that since Tynes had so much confidence, he decided go for the field goal. We watched without much confidence, but Tynes kicked the 47-yarder straight, true and long enough to sail above the cross bar. Later, having the luxury of watching many replays, I saw the Giant linemen raise their arms as the kick sailed down field. Lawrence Tynes took one good look at the ball and then sprinted to the locker room in the opposite direction before the officials signaled that the kick was good. THE KICK WAS GOOD!

All hell broke loose at 27 Roger Drive. We hugged each other and shouted. Jodie and Mary Ann came running in, the phones started ringing, our daughter Beth called, the whole world called, Dave opened champagne, I broke open my Middleton Irish Whiskey, oh lordy, lordy! Celebration city!! …Only little Sammie slept through it all.

The Giants were the Champions of the National Football Conference. They had won three games all of them on the road against the Number 4, Number 1 and Number 2 Seeded Teams and they were going to Glendale, Arizona for Super Bowl XLII and SO WERE WE!

Part V: The Option

The Giants 2008 Improbable Playoff Season

As soon as the Cowboys game ended, I turned to Dave and said: “If the Giants beat the Packers, I’m going to take my son to the Super Bowl. I have no faith that I’ll get tickets through the Giant season ticket lottery and I’m not looking to sell the options that I bought. What are you going to do with your options?”

“I’m not going to try to sell mine either. I’m going to take my son, Tim.”

“Great.” I replied. I was not happy with the alternative airline options that I had secretly checked out on line and Dave had a good travel agent. So, I said, “Call your travel agent tomorrow and ask her to check out flights into Tucson, Las Vegas and even San Diego. Tucson should be our first choice. Don’t try US Air / America West as all their flights go through Phoenix and are sold out. Don’t forget Southwest, they have several flights out of Islip via connecting point like Chicago and Baltimore. We’ll need a hotel and a rental car. Make it a minivan as they’re the roomiest and tell her to use someone like Enterprise where they don’t kill you for extra drivers.” (They don’t call me Control for nothing)

I know this is all confusing, what options, what are you talking about? Okay, time out, here’s the story:

Late last January, a few days before Super Bowl XLI  was played, I saw an article in the Sports Section of The New York Times about some chap who had enough imagination to create a facility for fans to buy options for tickets to major sporting events. The site was called TicketRESERVE.com. They guaranteed that if your team got into the Super Bowl you, the option holder, would be able to purchase tickets to the game at face value. What a great idea. They must make a ton of money since only two teams go to the Super Bowl. Any fan who buys options for any of the other thirty teams is out of luck.

I Googled TicketRESERVE and found that the asking price for the Giants was $148.00. The opening asking price is based on the odds Vegas sets for each team to get to the Super Bowl. “What the hell,” I said to myself and bought two options. Total cost $316.72 including a transaction fee of $20.72. I told Dave Brackett about the site and he also purchased two options.

Dave’s agent, Debbie did well. She found the single daily Jet Blue flight, but when she realized that the outbound flight didn’t leave until 7:10 p.m. arriving in Tucson at 11:04 and the return was a red eye, she suggested American via Dallas. We could fly out on Saturday at 8:15 a.m., arrive in Tucson at 2:30 p.m., return on Monday leaving at 3:00 p.m. and return to LaGuardia at around midnight. She pre-booked the flight and also booked us into a Best Western in Marana, Arizona, 30 miles north of Tucson and about 100 miles south of Phoenix. A good distance to travel back from a Super Bowl, but it shouldn’t be a problem with four of us.

Our improbable journey continued. Adios to Tampa Bay, the NFC’s 4^th Seed, adios to Dallas, the 1^st Seed. Next up, the 2^nd Seed, the Packers in Green Bay.

The cold, the cold, the cold; that is what filled the endless space of the scribes and talking heads. Can Eli play in the cold? Can the Giants play in the cold? Should they wear gloves? The longer the week went on the colder the forecast became for the game on Sunday. The Patriots game was the so-called early game. Since it didn’t begin until 3:00 p.m. the Giants – Packers game wasn’t scheduled to start until 6:42 p.m. The prediction was for 2 or 3 degrees at the start with a wind chill factor of -20 to -25 degrees.

My feeling about the Giants lottery was confirmed on Saturday when I received the following message:

Dear Season Ticket Holder:

Thank you for purchasing 2007 season tickets and for your continued support of our team.

The allotment of Super Bowl tickets to participating teams is very limited. In order to distribute the tickets as fairly as possible, we have held a computer-generated lottery, weighed by seniority. We are sorry to inform you that your name WAS NOT SELECTED in this random drawing.

We wish we could have all of our fans with us in Arizona but unfortunately that is not possible.

Sincerely,

New York Football Giants

The irony not being selected didn’t happen until four years later on the Thursday morning before Super Bowl XLVI was to be played. My phone rang with a call from the Football Giants. The agent confirmed my identity then said, “I am happy to tell you that you won the lottery and you have two tickets waiting for you at the team’s office in East Rutherford, NJ. You will need to bring cash or a bank check for $700 for each ticket and you have to pick them up by 5 pm tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” I replied,  “but tomorrow I am scheduled to receive a new hip at Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan.”

“I see, well good luck.” And he hung up.

I was certain he was already speaking to another lucky fan who would be gleefully going to the game.

On the Outside Looking In will not publish on October 21,but should return for October 28.

The Giants 2008 Improbable Playoff Season

John Delach

October 2025

The prize for beating the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Number Four Seed, was the dubious privilege to play the Number One Seed in the NFC, the Dallas Cowboys in their home stadium.

Nobody, I say, nobody thought Big Blue would beat America’s Team and win this game. In fact, not a single Number One Seeded team had ever lost its first playoff game in eighteen years! Added to that, the Cowboys had beaten the Giants in both of their two regular season games played that year. The Cowboys were favored to win by 6 points.

Despite the odds, the Giants were playing with the house’s money. Going into the 2007 regular season, the Giants were suffering turmoil and controversy on the field and in the press. Coach Coughlin held his job by a thread and the teams early 0-2 start set the stage for the tom toms to starting beating his demise.

But once again, and I do love this because, when a team that is down and out upsets all of the pundits, experts and talking heads by snatching a victory from the jaws of defeat. It is a reminder of one of the basic tenants of sports: And That’s Why They Play the Game!

Game Three was an away game against the Redskins that began as a continuation of Big Blue’s poor showing in the first two games. By halftime, the Giants had sunk to a 14-point deficit as the Redskins led 17-3. Incredibly, New York rallied from this deficit and engineered a victory that included a game-ending goal line stand.

Wow, out of nowhere, with zero expectations, this victory launched the team on a six-game winning streak. Then, after they beat the winless Dolphins in a game the NFL showcased in London, they ran out of lousy teams. After a week off to re-adjust to Eastern Time, they lost to the Cowboys for the second time this season. The rollercoaster ride continued as they edged the Detroit Lions and the Chicago Bears, but lost to both the Minnesota Vikings and the Redskins.

The team was still adrift until the second half of the Buffalo Bills game that they won despite Eli Manning’s lackluster performance, when running back, Ahmad Bradshaw, scored on a long run and the defense returned a pass interception for a touchdown. The last game of the season was a total effort against the Patriots that, despite the loss, launched Big Blue into the playoffs.

The Cowboys were rightly confident that this was their game to win. To reinforce their confidence, their owner, Jerry Jones, declared that the game would be a white-out and instructed all fans planning to attend the game dress in white. He also left an envelope in each players’ locker containing two tickets to the NFC Championship Game to be played next weekend in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Despite the hype, the Giants scored the first touchdown when Armoni Toomer turned a short pass into a long touchdown when the Dallas defenders failed to follow his moves after he caught the ball. Giants 7-0.

I watched the game at Dave Brackett’s house. Of course, we were pleased, but the Cowboys tied the score: 7-7. In the second quarter, Big Blue pinned the Cowboys deep in their territory as a result of the Giants punter, Jeff Feagles, giving Dallas terrible field position thanks to his coffin corner kick. But their quarterback, Tony Romo engineered a second long and damaging drive culminating in Dallas’ second touchdown: Cowboys 14-7 with 43 seconds left in the second quarter.

Dave and I groaned, especially when, Troy Aikman, doing the color on Fox, said: “The Giants have to move the ball down the field to score.”

Dave reacted to this: “Fat chance. Maybe, one or two shots, but that’s it.”

Instead, Manning moved them down the field hitting rookie, Steve Smith who was wrestled out of bounds by his face mask making the refs tack on 15 more yards. Then Manning advanced the ball by hitting Mike Boss and Toomer for a Giants touchdown. Halftime score: Giants 14-Cowboys 14.

We were stunned. We were still concerned by the message the Cowboys sent in the first half that they could move the ball on Big Blue, but still, the game was tied. The Giants defensive coordinator, Steve Spagnola decided to abandon the heavier pass coverage he used in the first half and throw everybody and their dogs directly against Romo to rattle him and disrupt the flow of the game.

It was at this point that the Cowboys decided to lose the game. First, they abandoned their effective running game. Second, they dropped a couple of passes that should have gone for big chunks of yardage and, third, Romo did become rattled. The Cowboys managed a field goal, but the Giants countered with a sustained drive and a rushing touchdown scored by running back, Brandon Jacobs. Jacobs almost blew the score by throwing the ball at the 24 second clock, but fortunately, the game officials chose not to throw a flag.

The game ended when the Giants intercepted a Romo pass that he threw in desperation. Final score Giants 21, Cowboys 17.

The look on their owner, Jerry Jones face, as he stood on the sideline when the game ended was priceless.

Next week the Giants would play the Green Bay Packers for the right to go to Super Bowl XLII.   

The Giants 2008 Improbable Playoff Season

John Delach

Our flight didn’t leave until 8:15 and it wasn’t even 6:30 by the time we finished dinner so we found our buddies in a bar attached to the restaurant. As we sat down one of them said, “Do you know who those people are sitting over there?”

I followed the direction he indicated but, before I could focus on the two men and two women dining at that table, my son exclaimed, “Wow, that’s Archie Manning.”

I studied the slim man who was just about six feet tall and silently admitted to myself that I wouldn’t have guessed that this was the legendary former quarterback of the New Orleans Saints and the father of Peyton Manning, the quarterback of the Super Bowl champion Indianapolis Colts, and Eli Manning our beleaguered quarterback who had played a smart and effective game against the Bucs earlier today.

As I realized that this was indeed Archie Manning our friend advised, “The other fellow is the oldest brother, Cooper, the older woman is their mother and the blond is Eli’s fiancée.”

Obviously, they came to see Eli play and were returning to their New Orleans home. “I’m surprised they fly by commercial airline.”

After a while, Archie left the family so he could have a beer and watch the football game from the bar. When Cooper joined him, they were so close to our table that I could touch them. Michael said, “Dad the resemblance between Cooper and Eli is amazing.”

I replied, “I’ll give you a dollar if you tell them to please move because they are blocking my view of the game.”

Without missing a beat, my six-foot five son stood and said, “Excuse me gentlemen, but you’re blocking my father’s view and he’d like you to move.”

Then he turned back to me before they could react and loudly continued, “Okay pop, give me the buck.”

I handed him a dollar and he turned back to Archie and Cooper, “Would you both mind autographing this bill?”

They laughed out loud, and we chatted as they obliged his request. Archie was also kind enough to autograph one of the Bucs pennants that I had confiscated. I explained that I stood on it during the game. “I decided to take it with me if the Giants won. It’s like seizing the enemy’s battle flag. I’m taking it back to New York where it will grace my garage with your signature.”

And so it does.

We had aisle seats on the flight home. The good news of flying on a Sunday night is that there aren’t many other airplanes in the air, we left the gate on time, took off without delay and arrived early. One interesting note about the flight back to LaGuardia, Mike was sitting next to a young woman in her Twenties and a man about my age. I had seen them at the pool on Saturday. “Dad,” Mike said, “They won their tickets from the WFAN Radio contest.”

“That’s great.” I answered. Then I added, “I saw you two at the pool, yesterday. I guessed that you are father and daughter, or is this some Ozark situation going on?”

Mike blurted, “Geez, Dad.”

We both arrived home fine. Mike drove his car. I had a local car service meet me. I didn’t remember the driver, but he remembered me. He was happy about the outcome in Tampa and provided me with a running commentary as to why the Giants won and the Bucs lost. I was impressed. He had all his ducks in a row. Still, I could only think; what an awful ride this would have been if the Bucs had won.