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Running back Brandon Jacobs, who weighs 264 pounds and runs over people, could play a key role for the Giants in Super Bowl XLII. |
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In order to win a football game, a team can have a marvelous quarterback, but even a Tom Brady is helpless unless he has the football. Try getting it against the New York Giants.
The New Yorkers can win Super Bowl XLII by doing against the New England Patriots what they did when they achieved their only success in this series in 1991 against the Buffalo Bills, and what they did last week in their conquest of the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship Game.
They made the football their own. They possessed it for 40 minutes and 33 seconds in escaping XXV with a 20-19 victory over the Bills. Against the Packers, they kept it for 40:01 while winning in overtime 23-20.
They have the stuff to keep the Patriots, possessors of the most prolific offense of the NFL's 88-year history, off the field: a 264-pound tailback, Brandon Jacobs, who operates behind a highly competent offensive front. As a counterpoint to Jacobs, the Giants offer a rookie running back who is quick and can hit for long gains, Ahmad Bradshaw.
In Eli Manning, they have a quarterback in his fourth professional season who would seem to have achieved an almost overnight maturity. His four most recent performances have been models of effective, nearly error-free quarterbacking.
“If we play smart football, if we don't have penalties, we have enough talent on third-and-medium and third-and-short situations to put together some good drives,” Manning said after his side's conquest of the Packers. “We know we can compete with anybody. We've had bad games. That's part of football. We're kind of loose a little bit, in and out, and then we get it goin'.”
They're goin' at the moment. Not to the degree of the Patriots, with their 18 consecutive triumphs, but the New Yorkers have an opportunity next Sunday at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., that Don Shula recognizes.
Shula, of course, was the coach of the Miami Dolphins when they went 16-0 in 1972, concluding this run with a 14-7 defeat of the favored Washington Redskins in Super Bowl VII.
Said Shula of the Giants: “This team is on a rise. You shouldn't count them out. Eli keeps getting better.”
Shula has seen a good deal of the Patriots. He was in Baltimore when the New Englanders got past the Ravens 27-24 on Dec. 3 on an evening when the hosts instrumented the approach that Shula said is advised against Brady and his associates.
“Anything you can do to keep the ball away from Brady, you've got to try to do,” Shula said. “Brady is so dynamic.”
Baltimore had an advantage in ball control in that game, but it was not an appreciable one. The Ravens had possession for 32:54 to the Patriots' 27:06.
The Giants, remember, held a 28-23 advantage after three periods of a game the Patriots won 38-35 in Week 17. Ball control was not a priority matter for the NFC East team in that one. It had just 19 rushes to New England's 26.
The lesson there for Giants coach Tom Coughlin was that his side is most effective when it is commanding the line of scrimmage, as it did against Green Bay. The Giants outrushed the Pack 134-28 in yardage. The winners had one drive when 7:48 ticked off and another that used up 7:04.
Manning, meantime, was making use of a route that the Packers term “rear shoulder.” Explained Green Bay corner defender Charles Woodson:
“Basically, it's like a half fade. It's a route that has become popular the last couple of years. Defensive backs usually have a lead position on a receiver, and the quarterback will throw it to where the receiver just has to slow down a little bit. It's probably one of the harder routes to defend.”
Pursuing such routes positioned 6-foot-5, 232-pound Plaxico Burress for a number of the 11 receptions for 154 yards he had against the policing of Al Harris, one of the NFL's most physical cornermen.
“They threw 'back shoulder' fades,” Harris said. “That's what they do. That may be the hardest route in football. If you're on top, they throw it to the back; if you're down low, they throw it over the top. But we knew that going in.”
Harris said in his review of tapes of Giants games he never saw a pass on a “back shoulder” route deflected.
“It's a hard route,” Harris said. “It's a hit or miss. If you guess right, maybe you pick it off, but if you guess wrong, you're going to be on the sideline.”
Woodson does not accept that the Giants are without a chance against the AFC champions.
“I don't believe that,” he said. “Go back to the game they played at the end of the season. They (the Giants) really had a chance to win that game. It's all about the way the ball bounces sometimes. New England made a couple of plays late, but (the Giants) right now are rollin'. It's rollin' pretty good. It's going to be a tough game, that's for sure.”
The surprise of Giants-Packers was how thoroughly the winners dominated Green Bay's two lines. The Giants had discerned how to negate Packers tailback Ryan Grant – by taking away his cutback lanes. They further frustrated Brett Favre with their pressure and their ability to deal with all the Packers receivers except Donald Driver.
Mostly, the Giants had the football. If they know what is good for them, they're going to act to have it again Sunday.
Jerry Magee: (619) 293-1830; jerry.magee@uniontrib.com
