POSTED: Monday January 5th 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
GIANTS NOTEBOOK, JANUARY 5, 2009
By Michael Eisen
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – The Giants will still carry the title of defending Super Bowl champions when they play the Philadelphia Eagles Sunday in an NFC Divisional Playoff Game.
“That is irrelevant at this point,” linebacker Antonio Pierce said today. “We are 0-0. The team we are facing is 1-0 and played great yesterday. Being the 2007 Super Bowl champions does not scare anybody, obviously.”
The Giants are the top-seeded team in the current NFC playoffs, with home-field advantage for as long as they stay alive.
“That season is irrelevant,” Pierce said. “The 2008 regular season is over with. There is nothing we can do about it. It is not going to help us moving forward. We can look at film and study and do everything, but come one o’clock on Sunday it is a totally different ballgame and I think we understand that. And if not, we will understand it by the end of the week.”
The Eagles won five of their last six games, including a 20-14 victory in Giants Stadium on Dec. 7. The Giants were not as hot down the stretch. So what does that all mean?
“I don’t think this team really looks at it like we lost three of the last four,” center Shaun O’Hara said. “We are done with last year. That was 2008 and this is 2009 now and it doesn’t matter what you did during the season.”
So there you have it – last year, last week, this season – none of it will mean anything when the Giants and Eagles line up Sunday for the right to advance to the NFC Championship Game. And that’s how it should be. For the second time in three years, these teams are playing three times in a season. In 2008, their two meetings produced a net point differential of plus-one in Philadelphia’s favor.
These two teams play each other so frequently and know each other so well, history becomes immaterial. There are no secrets, and there are few things offensively or defensively one team hasn’t seen from the other. All that matters is how well they play when the whistle blows.
The Eagles played well in yesterday’s 26-14 Wild Card victory over the Vikings in Minnesota. The defense hounded quarterback Tarvaris Jackson into a miserable 15-for-35 passing performance and put points on the board with Asante Samuel’s 44-yard interception return. Brian Westbrook made the game’s biggest play, turning a screen pass into a 71-yard touchdown that gave Philadelphia a nine-point lead midway through the fourth quarter.
“To be honest with you, going into the weekend I think a lot of us were kind of already mentally preparing for Philly,” O’Hara said. “And that is the way it turned out, so we are excited that we know who we are playing and now we can focus on them.
“I think that they are a team that is playing extremely well. They have found some rhythm. They are playing extremely well on defense, obviously, and offensively they are finding ways to score points. You look at the games that they have won down the stretch, with the exception probably being the Washington game, but what they did to Dallas and then the Minnesota game I think that we all felt that there was a good chance that we were going to be playing them and that is the way it turned out. We are looking forward to getting to work this week and looking forward to a big game.”
The Giants were 1-1 against the Eagles this season, winning on Nov. 9 in Lincoln Financial Field, 36-31, but losing the rematch at home, 20-14, on Dec. 7. That was the only home defeat the Giants suffered this season.
On Nov. 23, the Eagles lost in Baltimore, 36-7, and quarterback Donovan McNabb was benched in the second half. They were 5-5-1 and appeared to be postseason long shots. But the Eagles regrouped and played their best ball of the season down the stretch, starting with a Thanksgiving night rout of Arizona, another conference semifinalist.
“Philadelphia has played very well, very good football,” Coach Tom Coughlin said. “They are actually 5-1 since Baltimore. They have done an outstanding job of complimenting special teams, offense and defense. They are getting, as you know, big plays off of the special teams. They are taking good care of the ball. The screen was obviously the big play yesterday, which really got them going. Their defense has been very stingy; (it is) really very, very difficult to see any continuity in terms of offensive drives (against them). So they are playing very well and they went on the road and advanced in a very difficult place to play. And so we are excited about coming back together this week and getting ready to play a team that is playing well.”
Although even recent history means little, the Giants will surely study last month’s six-point loss to the Eagles. It was arguably the most frustrating of the Giants’ four regular season defeats, because it ended a seven-game winning streak, they gained a season-low 211 yards and they did not score an offensive touchdown until 15 seconds remained in the game.
“I think we missed opportunities,” Coughlin said. “We missed three fourth-downs that would have made, I think, a difference in the game - a fourth-and-four, a fourth-and-three and a fourth-and-one. We had some opportunities we really didn’t take advantage of much. It was almost like a reversal of the first game over in Philadelphia, where the scores weren’t – it wasn’t necessarily a high scoring game but time of possession was quite imbalanced. When we were over there it was in our favor. When Philadelphia was here it was in their favor. We had some outstanding rushing stats over there (219 yards). They had some over here (140 yards). So it was a game that was, as usual, a very, very physical game – as it always is. We didn’t take advantage of the opportunities that we had.”
While the Eagles played yesterday, the Giants rested on their well-earned bye weekend. The Giants had played a game in 13 consecutive regular season weeks, the longest possible stretch a team can have, and the last 10 of those contests were against teams with winning records, an NFL record.
After getting time to recharge their batteries, the players were excited and energized when they reported for work today.
“I think it was critical,” Pierce said of the bye week. “I won’t be sitting here lying to you, we played 13 straight games after our bye in Week 4, we faced some very physical and tough opponents who are all in the playoffs, and we needed the rest. It was good to sit back and just get your mind right, get right physically, and then just watch football. Just watch football from a player’s perspective and understand how the game is played and what it is like, what it means at this point in the season and you need the sense of urgency of all the teams that played this weekend. Then it lets you know how great of an opportunity that we have in front of us.”
*The Giants didn’t practice today, but they did begin working on Philadelphia.
“The players are in today,” Coughlin said. “They have their conditioning program. They have their strength program and obviously the medical program. And the Philadelphia tape is in each room with a study guide for them, something which they can follow. And that will be the same way tomorrow. And then we will go to work and have a normal work week on Wednesday morning.”
*Coughlin was asked about his injured players, notably running back Brandon Jacobs, but deferred any announcements until the team practices.
“They seem to be doing okay,” he said. “I am not going to say what their status will be on Wednesday. We will take full advantage of today and tomorrow to get ourselves closer to that. But hopefully we can work even if it is in a limited basis. But we will see.”
*Coughlin said he is not concerned about Steve Spagnuolo’s focus after the defensive coordinator interviewed for head coaching positions over the bye week.
“It won’t be a distraction,” Coughlin said “I have talked to him. He has tried to keep me posted, but there isn’t any doubt in my mind that his focus is right here preparing for the Philadelphia Eagles. Last week was a league-wide opportunity for anybody who was in the bye week and a couple of days were set aside for this according to those rules. And they did not interfere with anything that we are doing here. And he, as always, is very much focused on the job at hand.”
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