I had to give it some time before I could post about Sunday’s game. I tried yesterday and all that I was able to type was a string of expletives that could only have made sense to Chris Berman (if you don’t get the joke, click on the link). Today I feel like I can get through a pretty decent post before I succumb to blind rage.

The Giants. It was a disappointing loss, but I can’t say it was completely surprising. Every Giants fans knew that this was going to be a tough one. The Eagles are always a tough team to beat, especially when they have a psyche advantage. What I mean by that is Philly wasn’t even supposed to be in the playoffs. If they lost, everyone would just say “oh, well the Eagles were lucky just to make it that far.” But the Giants were the number one seed. They had a fantastic season, got their bye week, and (no matter what other people said) were supposed to win that game. That’s an advantage that the Giants had last year, and the Eagles have it this season.

Before I get into the game, I just wanted to point out something that Bill Simmons said in a recent column on ESPN.com about the NFL playoff format. Simmons had this to say about the current format and why they should change it:

“[T]he No. 1 seeds get to pick which team they want to play. Why? BECAUSE IT’S IDIOTIC THAT THE GIANTS FOUGHT ALL YEAR TO WIN THE NO. 1 SEED, AND NOW THEY HAVE TO PLAY A POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS EAGLES TEAM INSTEAD OF A CARDINALS TEAM THAT WOULD HAVE A ZERO PERCENT CHANCE OF BEATING THEM!!!!!! Sorry, I had to go all-caps there. It’s that dumb. So is Tennessee playing 12-5 Baltimore instead of 9-8 San Diego. I don’t get it.”

I don’t read as much of Simmons as i used to, but I completely agree with this sentiment. The Giants really fought hard to win that #1 seed and to have to face a tougher playoff opponent than the #2 seed didn’t make any sense. I can already feel my insides burning, I better start my analysis before I lose control (this must be what David Banner feels like).

During the game, I thought the offensive playcalling was poor, but checking back on the stats it looks like Gilbride did a good job. I felt like they didn’t run the ball enough while I was watching the game but Gilbride called 32 running plays against 29 throws. The only play call that I really want to complain about was the direct snap to Derrick Ward – that’s just not Giants football. They never used gimmicky plays during the season and when they tried this one, it didn’t work and they were stopped on third and short (the Eagles really stuffed up the Giants running game when they had to).

The thing that really hurt the Giants is that they couldn’t get the ball into the end zone. They had to settle for five field goal attempts, of which Carney missed two. Those two misses were from 46 and 47 yards. Now, I know that he had the wind at his back for both of these kicks, but if Coughlin is going to activate Lawrence Tynes for the game why not have him attempt these? The only reason Tynes was activated was because he can kick the ball further than Carney, why not use him on these long field goal attempts? Two of Carney’s three misses this season came on 40+ yard field goal attempts. Everyone knows that this guy doesn’t have much of a leg, he can’t even kick the kickoff past the opponent’s twenty yard line for God’s sake. Coughlin should have had Tynes kick at least one of those longer tries.

The factor that ultimately determined this game, though, was the Eagles defense. They played great. They held Eli to a measly 51% completion rate and he averaged under six yards per completion. Jacobs had a good game, averaging nearly five yards a carry, but the Eagles held Ward to just 3.8 yards per run. The most important statistic here, though, was the long third downs which the Giants were forced to convert. The Giants attempted to convert 13 third downs, only four of those were less than 5 yards. It’s very tough to beat any team when you are forced to convert that many long third down attempts and the Giants couldn’t.

The Eli interception in first quarter turned out to be a really crucial play because it led to the Eagles first TD. (This turnover would not have cost the G-Men so much if it wasn’t for that bs holding penalty on Kenny Phillips. The Giants would have held them to a field goal if that touch foul wasn’t called in the end zone.) But what I want to talk about here is Asante Samuel. I am tired of people saying how great of a corner he is; he happened to be in the right spot at the right time to make this pick. Steve Smith blew by him on the first play of the game because Samuel tried to jump the route (like he does way too often) and got made a fool of by an Eli Manning pump fake. Unfortunately the wind knocked down Eli’s pass and the ball ended up being way behind Smith. The only reason Samuel gets as many picks as he does is because teams throw at him. Good corners don’t get thrown at.

Oh God, the rage is building … can’t control it for much longer.

Okay, I think I can rant about one more topic and then I’m going to kick the shit out of a brick wall. I absolutely loathe the media saying that if the Giants had Plaxico Burress they would have won this game. I’ll admit that if they had them, it would have increased their chances of winning. But I don’t think by that much. First of all, the Giants had a 4-3 regular season record without Plax. And in the nine games that Plaxico did play, he didn’t put up great numbers (35 catches, 454 yards, 4 TDs). So the Giants proved that they don’t need Plax to win games.

With the wind swirling so bad, I don’t even think that Eli could have thrown downfield in this game, so Burress would not have affected the passing game a whole lot. You can also argue that the Eagles would have been less aggressive with bringing their safeties up to the line of scrimmage to help against the run if Plaxico played. While this may be true, I don’t think that bringing extra defenders into the box stopped the Giants running game anyway.

As I said, the thing that determined the game was the Eagles defense. When the Giants got the ball in the red zone, Philly held them to field goals. That’s the bottom line, the Giants offense could not get the ball into the end zone. Would Plax have made a difference here? Who knows? Maybe he would have. I just hate the fact that so called “experts” are saying that my team’s success relies on a millionaire who drives cars without insurance and shoots himself at nightclubs. Well, I guess it’s better than having a player on your team who has other people shot at nightclubs…

Alright I’m done here, I’m gonna go outside and pick a fight.

HULK SMASH!!!!