New York Giants Win Ugly; Strahan Hurt: It wasn’t supposed to be this difficult. Not only was the game closer than expected, but the Giants were trailing the Houston Texans well into the fourth quarter and needed an 11-play, 67-yard drive in that period to come from behind and win the game. The Giants survived a late Houston drive and won the contest 14-10 at the Meadowlands, improving their overall record to 6-2. The Giants are now two games ahead of the 4-4 Cowboys and 4-4 Eagles in the NFC East.
The bad news for the Giants is that DE Michael Strahan was forced to leave the game in the second quarter with a potentially serious mid-foot sprain. After the game, Head Coach Tom Coughlin said he did not know how badly Strahan was hurt. The team said X-rays were negative but Strahan was wearing a boot on the injured right foot after the game.
Aside from Strahan, the Giants were also without DE Osi Umenyiora (hip), DE Justin Tuck (foot), LB Brandon Short (quad), and CB Sam Madison (hamstring) on defense and WR Plaxico Burress (back) and RT Kareem McKenzie (migraine) on offense.
The Giants won, but it wasn’t pretty.
“It wasn’t pretty at all today,” said HB Tiki Barber, who rushed for 115 yards and a touchdown. “We did some things well, but a lot of things we didn’t do well. We had too many penalties in critical situations, sacks, not being opportunistic enough, and you have to give them credit. They controlled the clock. I’m not sure about this, but they may have beaten us in time of possession. We had to take our shots and take advantage of our situations when we could, and we did. We have to be thankful we got away with a win and now we put it behind us and go forward with Chicago.”
“It was a tough day and you have to give a lot of credit to Houston, they played really well,” said QB Eli Manning, who completed 17-of-28 passes for 179 yards, one touchdown, and one interception. “Their offense kept the ball for a long period of time and we did not have many possessions as an offense. When we did, we did a decent job of moving the ball in the first half, we just made mistakes that hurt us and eliminated us from getting points. The first time we got the ball we had a great drive and went down there and scored. The next time we had a chance but I had a bad throw on third down. After that we drove down there to the five-yard line and then had a penalty and two sacks. We made some mistakes that hurt us but we have to find a way to eliminate those and play better football. In the end of the fourth quarter we knew we had to change the tempo so we went into our two-minute no-huddle offense. We hit some passes and some runs. Guys stepped up and made plays. When we got down to the goal line, (TE Jeremy) Shockey did a great job and still made a great catch for a touchdown. We found a way to win.”
Houston was not able to run the football very well as HB Wali Lundy was held to 43 yards on 20 carries. The Texans used a quick, 3-step drop short-passing game for much of the afternoon and QB David Carr also picked up 24 yards and a touchdown on the ground.
The Texans drove the football from their own 26-yard line to the Giants’ 24-yard line on the opening drive of the game, but Houston’s kicker missed a 42-yard field goal. The Giants looked like they were going to make short work of the Texans as they drove 68 yards in seven plays to take a 7-0 lead on their first possession. Barber scored from 16 yards out to cap the drive for his first touchdown of the season. However, the Giants were not to put up another point on the scoreboard until midway through the fourth quarter.
The Texans and Giants exchanged punts on the next possessions for each team. Then Houston managed a 15-play, 67-yard drive in the second quarter that took almost seven minutes off of the clock and resulted in a successful 41-yard field goal. The Giants now led 7-3.
The Giants initially responded well after this Texans’ drive by moving the ball from their own 29-yard line to Houston’s 9-yard line. But a holding penalty on Rich Seubert and two back-to-back sacks pushed the ball back to the 35-yard line and New York punted. With less than two minutes to go before halftime, the Texans went three-and-out. Manning tried to hit WR Amani Toomer on the last play before halftime, but the ball was intercepted. 7-3 Giants at the half.
Amazingly, the Giants only had three legitimate offensive possessions in the first half. And they only had three more in the second half before their last drive when New York was merely attempting to run out the clock.
The Giants received the ball to start the second half and moved the ball well once again, but again, this drive ended in disaster. New York drove from their own 23-yard line to Houston’s 18-yard line. Strangely, on 3rd-and-7, the Giants called a running play. This lost two yards. On the ensuing field goal attempt, holder Jeff Feagles could not handle the snap. Feagles then attempted to pass the ball to PK Jay Feely. The pass was ruled incomplete and the Texans took over.
To make matters worse, Houston then ate up the bulk of the entire third quarter with an 18-play, 80-yard marathon of a drive that took over eight minutes off the clock and resulted in a 2-yard touchdown run by Carr to give the Texans a 10-7 advantage. On this drive, Houston converted one 4th down and two 3rd down conversion attempts. And when it appeared the Giants had finally stopped the Texans, S James Butler was flagged with an inexcusable unnecessary roughness penalty that kept the drive alive.
Both teams then exchanged three-and-outs. The Giants got the ball back with 12:41 left in the game. The Giants, now in the no-huddle, drove the ball 67 yards in 11 plays to take a 14-10 lead with eight minutes to go in the game. The drive ended with a 3-yard touchdown pass to TE Jeremy Shockey off a playaction fake to HB Brandon Jacobs.
However, the game was not over and the Texans did not give up. Their ensuing possession started at their own 30-yard line. A roughing the passer penalty and three short completions moved the football to the Giants’ 42-yard line. But on 2nd-and-6, LB Gerris Wilkinson forced a fumble after a short completion to FB Jameel Cook. CB Corey Webster recovered the loose ball and the Giants were able to impressively run out the clock despite the fact that there were still over five minutes to go in the game. “In my mind, that was the play of the game,” LB Antonio Pierce said of the turnover.
“Let’s face it, we didn’t play well today, but we didn’t fall down,” said Barber. “We didn’t give ourselves up. We fought through it, we came away with the big win, we made the plays down the stretch when we had to. We deserve credit for that.”
Post-Game Notes: Inactive for the Giants were DE Osi Umenyiora (hip), DE Justin Tuck (foot), LB Brandon Short (quad), CB Sam Madison (hamstring), WR Plaxico Burress (back), WR Sinorice Moss (quad), OT Guy Whimper, and QB Tim Hasselbeck (third quarterback).
HB Tiki Barber has 9,617 career rushing yards and 5,000 career receiving yards. Barber is just the third player in NFL history with at least 9,000 rushing yards and 5,000 receiving yards. Marcus Allen and Marshall Faulk are the other two players.