Sunday, December 7, 2008

Early Reaction

I sure didn't see that game coming. Did you?

I'm not not talking about the result. I knew we could win. I didn't buy the "Eagles will need a miracle to win" garbage. We almost won the last game and didn't even play all that well.

I was shocked by the way we won. I did not anticipate Westy running 33 times and the Giants not breaking 100 yards on the ground. We won the battle at the line of scrimmage, after the 1st quarter. Fred Robbins seemed to think he was Albert Haynesworth in the opening period. Luckily he remembered he's Fred Robbins after that and played at a normal level (which is good this year...Pro Bowl type DT).

Our OL just pounded on those guys. They blocked well. The receivers, TEs, and Klecko helped out. Westy ran well. We had success and the coaches stuck with the run. Amazing how that works. 37 called runs. That was a thing of beauty.

The defense played well. The Giants helped by dropping some passes and looking sloppy, but our guys deserve a lot of credit. They were much better than the first Giants game.

David Akers nailed a 51-yd FG to open the scoring. That was his longest kick of the year. I was really surprised to see him hit that long of a kick on a cold windy day at the Meadowlands (where he struggles).

He had 2 blocked (one was really just deflected). I didn't think either was Akers' fault. Winston Justice had a very poor block on Justin Tuck that led to the disaster before halftime. CB Terrell Thomas has to get a lot of credit on the second kick. He flew off the edge and just got part of a hand on the ball.

We really won this game by keeping control of the ball. We had a 17-7 lead and got the ball back with 9:26 left in the 4th quarter. I told the team (through the TV of course) that I wanted a 5-minute drive. They delivered. The Eagles went on a 14 play, 46 yard drive that ate up 7:17 and resulted in a FG. How's that for domination late in the game?

The win puts us at 7-5-1 and squarely in the middle of the playoff hunt.
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1 comment:

Mark H. said...

Where was that effort all season long? It's amazing how much desperation factors into a team's play.