Whew! Giants Prevail 26-23 in Overtime: In a game that looked like a mismatch on paper, the NFL Champion New York Giants were forced into overtime by the winless Cincinnati Bengals at the Meadowlands earlier today. The Giants prevailed 26-23.
The Giants are now 3-0 heading into their bye week. The last Giants’ team to start a season 3-0 was the 2000 New York Giants. That team reached the Super Bowl against the Baltimore Ravens.
The Giants’ first two drives of the game produced only 27 yards, one first down, and no points. Meanwhile the Bengals put together a 12-play, 59-yard drive that resulted in a 22-yard field goal and a 3-0 lead after one quarter of play.
On New York’s third offensive possession, the Giants drove 80 yards in nine plays to take a 7-3 lead. A defensive pass interference call on ex-Giant LB Dhani Jones gave the Giants a first down on 3rd-and-7. QB Eli Manning then hit TE Kevin Boss for a 21-yard gain. Two plays later, HB Brandon Jacobs scored from one yard out.
The lead was short lived however as the Bengals immediately responded with an 8-play, 74-yard touchdown drive of their own. HB Chris Perry scored from 25 yards out to give the Bengals a 10-7 advantage.
Back came the Giants with a field goal drive that tied the game at 10-10 as the Giants moved 51 yards in seven plays. The big plays were a 26-yard pass to Boss and a 22-yard run by HB Derrick Ward. The drive unfortunately stalled inside the Bengals’ 10-yard line.
The back-and-forth contest continued before halftime as Cincinnati responded yet again, this time with a 13-play, 66-yard drive that ended with a 30-yard field goal. At the break, the underdog Bengals were winning 13-10.
The only points generated in the third quarter were a field goal by the Giants. Three consecutive drives by the Bengals only accrued a total of nine yards. The Giants were not much more successful. There was one 3-and-out and the field goal drive only traveled 30 yards in 9 plays, being set up by a 26-yard punt return by WR Domenik Hixon. The drive was also kept alive by a 12-yard catch by Hixon on 3rd-and-10. PK John Carney’s 46-yard field goal tied the game at 13-13.
The Giants’ third possession of the second half also resulted in points as New York drove 67 yards in 11 plays. Manning found WR Steve Smith for 15 yards on 3rd-and-14. But the Giants were forced to settle for a 26-yard field goal and a tenuous 16-13 advantage.
Now in the fourth quarter, the Bengals finally began to move the ball. Cincinnati regained the lead by driving 82 yards in 12 plays. On 3rd-and-6, QB Carson Palmer hit WR T.J. Houshmandzadeh for a 17-yard touchdown. The Bengals led 20-16 with under five minutes to play.
The Giants responded with a 9-play, 68-yard drive that resulted in a touchdown pass from Manning to Boss on 3rd-and-goal from the 4-yard line with just under two minutes to go in the game. Giants 23 – Bengals 20.
“I knew we had several plays in there where I could get an opportunity to get the ball,” said Boss. “Great call by Coach Gilbride and a great pass by Eli. I was able to come down with it in traffic. It felt really nice to be able to contribute today. I was able to make some big plays and I felt like I contributed to the victory. It was a long game but it was a lot of fun. We battled back and forth; I think someone said the lead changed seven times. It was a great football game to play in.”
But the Giants’ defense failed to hold. In 1 minute and 50 seconds, the Bengals drove 71 yards in 10 plays. Luckily for the Giants, time became a factor as the Bengals kicked their game-tying field on 1st-and-goal from the 3-yard line as time expired on the clock.
The Giants won the toss in overtime. However, New York was forced to punt after only one first down. The Giants’ defense then forced a 3-and-out and the Bengals punted the ball back to the Giants.
On New York’s second possession in overtime, Manning led his team 62 yards in 7 plays to set up Carney’s game-winning 22-yard field goal. The big plays on the drive were a 28-yard pass to WR Plaxico Burress and a 31-yard pass to WR Amani Toomer on 3rd-and-10.
“I needed it,” said Toomer. “I just got an opportunity to make a play. Things don’t always go the way you want it, but if it comes down to it, I’m there. Going into overtime we knew we had a lot of momentum left. We just find a way to win; that is the key to this team. We just found a way to win; I’m real excited.”
Offensively, Manning finished the game 26-of-43 for 289 yards, 1 touchdown, and 0 interceptions. Smith caught 7 passes for 60 yards, Toomer 5 passes for 64 yards, Boss 3 passes for 51 yards, and Burress 3 passes for 45 yards. Ward was the leading rusher with 80 yards on 9 carries as Jacobs was limited to 35 yards on 14 carries.
“That was a fun one,” said Manning. “That’s a game that wasn’t pretty at all times, we didn’t play our best football, but that’s just kind of how it goes sometimes. Everything’s not going to go perfectly and you’ll have some ups and downs, so we kept fighting, we never gave up and when we needed to make plays I think guys stepped up and made plays. We’ve always kind of had that ability and had that about us, and it’s good that we haven’t lost that. It’s something you can’t really coach, you can’t teach. For some reason when it’s clutch time and we need to make some plays, we tend to find a way to make plays.”
Defensively, the Giants accrued 6 sacks. But the team gave up 347 total net yards (245 passing, 102 rushing). LB Antonio Pierce had 13 tackles. CB Corey Webster had a sack and forced a fumble. DT Fred Robbins had his second 2-sack game in a row. And DE Mathias Kiwanuka and DE Dave Tollefson each had a sack.
“They put together some really good drives and spread our defense out,” said CB Aaron Ross. “They hit us with knick knack yards – like a cross here, a cross there. And they were successful on third downs. Getting a chance to pull out the win in overtime is huge. Plax came up with a great play to get us down there and Amani came up with another great play to finish it off. It is great watching those guys perform at that level. I tip my hat to Cincinnati because you could see that they are a good team by the way they played today. They have just been catching bad breaks. They will continue to do good as long as they finish the game.”
“We were able to come through today,” said CB Sam Madison. “I thought we played tough when we had to. We gave up a couple of passes here and there, but overall I think our team played extremely well. We wanted to put pressure on Carson and we did that. But he got some balls out quickly. For us it was a great effort by everybody on this team. Playing the scout team all week and getting the chance to see what they do, you know that they have a lot of confidence in each other and what they do. You just knew they were going to get it done. We just came together as a team when we had to.”
“We didn’t do a lot of things right at certain points of the game, but when it was time for this team to step up and win the game, we did,” said RG Chris Snee. “Obviously we would have liked to play more consistent throughout the game, but we got the win. A game like this is something we can really build on. On the last drive we had a lot of confidence and we knew what we had to do.”
“Give credit where credit is due to Cincinnati, they played well,” said Head Coach Tom Coughlin. “They came in here, they were 0-2, their coach said they were going to play hard, they did play hard, they were physical, they hadn’t shown that kind of pressure in any of their previous games, they really did a nice job of that. Some we were able to manipulate and others we weren’t, they moved the ball, they had some runs in the first half which put us back on the drawing board so to speak at halftime. They made plays when they had to in the passing game. We responded. We had the one long drive in regulation in the fourth quarter and then, of course, they did, too, but then we followed that up with the overtime plays and we are just happy to have the win. The Cincinnati Bengals are a good team. I had a sense that here is a team that was tenth in the league in ranking offensively and hadn’t really gotten themselves on track and we saw them get pretty much on track today, but they also were very good on defense today. We had our hands full and we found a way to win.”
Post-Game Notes and Quotes: The Giants trailed in the fourth quarter, 20-16. This was the seventh time QB Eli Manning has rallied the Giants from a fourth-quarter deficit to win or tie a regular-season game.
The Giants are 17-16-2 in overtime, including 16-14-2 in the regular season. They are 6-9 in home regular season overtime games.
The Giants improved to 16-4 (.800) in games prior to a regular-season bye. Coughlin is 9-4 in pre-bye games, including 4-1 with the Giants.
Inactive for the Giants were HB Danny Ware, WR Mario Mannngham, OT Adam Koets, DE Jerome McDougle, LB Jonathan Goff, CB R.W. McQuarters (calf), CB Terrell Thomas (hamstring), and PK Lawrence Tynes (knee).
Commenting on why McDougle was inactive, Coughlin said, “He has been managing a leg situation. He came in with some swelling and soreness this morning and we didn’t know that he would be able to go the four quarters and we had a healthy Dave Tollefson, so the move was to let Dave play and Dave gets a sack.”
Giants Tried to Trade Moss to Seahawks?: According to The Daily News, the Giants were willing to trade WR Sinorice Moss to the Seattle Seahawks, but the Seahawks were not interested. Seattle’s wide receiving corps has been hard hit with injuries.
Article on TE Kevin Boss: Boss Has Grown Into Role as Blocker by Mike Garafolo of The Star-Ledger
Article on DE Jerome McDougle: Giants’ McDougle Works with Troubled Youngsters by Joe Lapointe of The New York Times