Last season, the Giants traveled to Philly to play against the Eagles in the first round of playoff. Though fine plays from Eli Manning and offensive unit, Jeff Garcia and TO crushed the Giants again thanks for the help from invisible Giants defense.
This past Sunday, the Giants traveled to Tampa Bay to play against the Jeff's Bucs in the first round of playoff. This time, Jeff's buddy,TO, was unavailable for Garcia. Before the game started, however, Jeff Garcia still said openly that he had fun to play against the Giants. The Bucs' CB Ronde Barber also claimed that Eli could be had. The Giants were underdog and everybody but the Giants' fans picked the Bucs to win.
The Giants started slow and only gained -2 offsensive yards in the first quarter. I wasn't panic though because I believed that they could come back and they did have a lot of 4th quarter comeback games under QB Eli Manning in the past.
The Bucs' defense, did what they planned before the game, put eight men in the box to stop the Giants running game. They challenged Eli to put the ball in air and Eli delivered.
The final stat for Eli is 20-27, 185 yard, 2 TDs and 0 int, QB rating 117.1 (QB rating is not an accurate reference though). Put in consideration that he faced the #1 passing defense in the league and #2 total defense in NFL, his performance was very impressive. I am a long time Eli supporter and always want him to succeed. Eli is a humble, quiet, and hard working kid. He takes a lot of heat and shits from media because he plays in NY but he has never yielded.
With him the Giants were able to play in postseason three years in a row. You might argue that it was due to team effort but Eli's ability to throw 24, 24, 23 TDs in the past three seasons, respectively, is one of the important factors. Eli has tool to be one of the elites. His biggest problem is inconsistency and he tends to play badly in horrible weather conditions. It is not good because NY is located in Northeastern part of the nation but I still believe that he could improve and keep improving due to his mentallity.
I give credit to the Giants OC Kevin G., who I have bashed for the whole season. He saw that the starting RB, Jacob Brandon, a tall, heavy power back, couldn't get away from the Bucs' speedy LB's then he turned to our rookie RB Ahmad Bradshaw, a smalled, elusive, but tough guy then the rookie wore the Bucs' defense down yard by yard. This contributed to set up the passing game.
Lastly kudos to all rookies, backups, who stepped up to match well to the Bucs starters, who had two weeks rest to prepare for this game. I give special praise to the backup CB Corey Webster, who completely wrap up the Buc's #1 WR, Joey Galloway, the fastest receiver in the league, though he was injured.
I read the lips of Jeff Garcia at the 4th quarter. He murmured: "f*ck the bastards." Guess that he had fun to play against the Giants as the Giants' defense sent his butt on ground so many time. It is classic (grin).