Plaxico Burress was banished three weeks ago, but the Giants are only just now climbing out of his shadow.
The team that emerged from Sunday night’s winner-take-all NFC bout against the Carolina Panthers looked a lot more like the defending Super Bowl champs than the one that began it, and not just because the Giants won.
The only notable change in personnel was the return of Brandon Jacobs, New York’s sledgehammer of a running back, who missed the last six quarters because of a bad knee.
“We let them know we were there and we were going to be there all night,” said Jacobs, whose three touchdown runs, including the game-winner in overtime, totaled exactly four yards.
“And 34,” he added, referring to the number of backfield tandem Derrick Ward, “every time I’m out here, he’s a different player.”
g, the most by a Giants team in nearly a half-century, reversed a slide by quarterback Eli Manning the past two weeks, and eased concerns that his transformation into one of the league’s elite QBs during the Giants’ Super Bowl run last season was more than just temporary.
New York had managed just one meaningless TD in back-to-back losses to Philadelphia and Dallas, in large part because opponents no longer had to double up on the other Giants receivers the way they did Burress, and routinely deployed the extra body near the line of scrimmage in an eight-man front. Unable to break down defenses without Jacobs’ punishing runs, the Giants offense was unprepared to shift gears and riddle them with passes.
“This,” Manning said, flanked by Jacobs and Ward after the 34-28 win, “makes my life a lot easier.”
But not as easy as Tom Coughlin’s.
New York’s coach is notoriously “old school” about everything from disciplinary matters to play-calling, and his idea of innovation is to challenge his players to be even tougher. It worked the first time Burress drew a one-game suspension for blowing off a team meeting and the Giants hardly skipped a beat.
followed soon after when Jacobs and a few defenders were sidelined or hampered by injuries.
As late as the first half Sunday night, when the Giants trailed 21-13, it seemed like the only suspense left was whether Coughlin was going to grudgingly change up his offense or get burned a third straight week. If the same doubts had spread to the players along the New York sideline, none would acknowledge them afterward.
“We’ve had our doubters, that we hit our peak in the past,” Ward recalled. “We knew that we could run the ball. That’s what the New York Giants are. We run the ball.”
That Coughlin stuck to his game plan showed at least as much faith in his team as it showed in return. Burress’ absence might still be most deeply felt in the red zone, where the Giants have had to work harder than ever for points. Ward filled in admirably as New York’s game-breaker on this night. But the defenses he and Jacobs and Ahmad Bradshaw will have to crack throughout the playoffs will be just as physical as Carolina’s was.
Plus, all those yards wouldn’t have amounted to much if John Kasay’s 50-yard field goal attempt at the end of regulation hadn’t veered wide left at the last moment.
out another day. New York has the top seed, home-field advantage throughout the playoffs and with a little help from the weatherman, that could be enough to get back to the Super Bowl.
“Teams got to come in here and play in the cold,” Jacobs said, smiling. “We’ve already proved we do that.”
“I would like to think we would have the advantage in some of those,” Manning added. “I think it will be fun playing the games at home.”
But the Panthers mirror the Giants in several important ways – powerful ground-game, punishing defense and capable special teams – and Carolina coach John Fox wouldn’t be too upset coming back to Giants Stadium with a trip to the Super Bowl hanging in the balance.
“The team that won it a year ago,” he said, recalling how the Giants rolled into the playoffs as the No. 5 seed last season and won big games on the road, “wasn’t the first seed, either.”
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Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitkeap.org
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