Christmas in Detroit
by J.D. Cook
Final Score: NY Giants 23 Detroit Lions 20
23-20 is a historic score for the New York Giants. That was the very score they defeated the Green Bay Packers by in the 2007 N.F.C. Championship Game. It was also the score they defeated the Philadelphia Eagles by when I saw them live in Lincoln Financial Field under the threat of death by rabid Eagles’ fans. So it is nice to see that score when the Giants defeat my little brothers favorite team the Detroit Lions. In essence Christmas came to Detroit in the form of a Giants win for me!
I was impressed by how well the Giants played in the first half of the game. They seemed calm, cool and collected. On offense they didn’t make any major mistakes and drove down the field for a score. On defense the Giants held the Lions to only 3 points which is extremely impressive considering how high powered the Lions offense has looked this season. In the second half it looked like things would take a decidedly droll turn as the Lions scored a touchdown and got a safety. As usual the Giants offense was not able to do anything to give the defense a break and never really established the run. Thankfully the Giants defense stepped up to the plate as Will Hill returned an interception for a touchdown to tie the game. In overtime the Giants did enough to win on offense by getting into field goal range. The defense also held Matt Stafford from scoring a single touchdown! All is well that ends well and now we take the Detroit Lions down into the off-season with us! Muhaha! Unfortunately I did have one big complaint with this game but it had nothing to do with either team.
I was stuck watching NFL Red Zone today. I already didn’t really like the idea of it as I am a fanatical Giants fan. I enjoy watching other football games but when the Giants are on the rest of the world kind of falls into my peripheral. Red Zone forces you to watch only those teams that are in ‘the Red Zone’ and the NFL Network controls what you view. It’s like being stuck at the mercy of some kind of television Big Brother. I do not like anything about the concept but I can usually tolerate it when I have to. Sadly this was one of the Sundays I had to deal with it and it just seemed like the the N.F.L. Network knew it. They kept focusing on the blowout match up of New England vs Baltimore or the Green Bay vs. Pittsburgh game instead of the Giants / Lions game…even when the Giants game only had 2:00 minutes left! They’d also linger on every other team while they were on challenges or time outs forcing me to watch the Giants game online during critical drives! It was a pretty maddening day of football! Thankfully it was made less disgusting by the taste of victory.
Next week we close out our season at a resurgent Washington. They may not have their starting quarterback and they may have a bunch of issues in the locker room but they have been playing their opponents tough of late. Hopefully we can close our lost season out with a strong victory. Last year we ended the season by blowing out Philadelphia and that gave me a pretty good vibe going into the off-season. Obviously that good vibe didn’t turn into anything this season but it was nice. So here’s to one last victory for what has been a fairly consistent Coughlin coaching staff and team before Ownership hopefully guts a large amount of it in the offseason. Here’s to a bit of change to make us a playoff team again next year!
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The Giants Blog is published every Monday during the NFL season while the New York Giants remain viable contenders (which in 2011 was right to the end and their Super Bowl championship). On the weeks when the Giants have a Monday night game, the blog will be published on Wednesday. The blogs are thoughtful (albeit heavily biased) analysis of the Giants’ performance from our editor-in-chief and Giant fanatic J.D. Cook.
