AMERICAN FOOTBALL CONFERENCE FINALS:THE BALL skittered sideways, shooting out of the punt returner's grasp, bouncing into Giants lore. The fumble the rookie Jacquian Williams caused by reaching his large right hand into the crook of Kyle Williams' elbow during overtime of the NFC championship game on Sunday night does not have the drama of David Tyree's Velcro-on-the-helmet Super Bowl catch from four years ago. But it accomplished something nearly as improbable.
In a season of remarkable comebacks, the Giants crafted one more. Lawrence Tynes, who kicked an overtime field goal to send the Giants to the 2008 Super Bowl, booted a 31-yard field goal – off a soggy field, with a bad snap, into a heavy mist – 7:54 into overtime to beat the San Francisco 49ers, 20-17 and create a delicious symmetry.
The Giants, their season written off first by a series of injuries and free-agency stumbles in training camp, then after a four-game losing streak in November that put their coach’s job in peril, return to the Super Bowl for the first time since 2008. They will meet the team they vanquished that time, the New England Patriots, who beat the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC championship game earlier on Sunday.
They will play on February 5th in Indianapolis, the city where Eli Manning’s brother Peyton became famous.
The Patriots, whom the Giants defeated during the regular season, are seeking their fourth title since 2001. The Giants’ president, John Mara, holding the Lombardi Trophy in 2008, called that the greatest victory in the history of the franchise. Sunday’s overtime victory over the 49ers might not reach that standard, but when Tynes’ kick went through the goalposts, Mara unleashed a scream – “Yes!”
Just a few weeks ago, with his team at 7-7 and on the verge of missing the play-offs, the job status of his coach, Tom Coughlin, seemed to be in jeopardy. Now, his team, which needed victories over the Jets and the Cowboys in the final two regular-season games just to finish 9-7, is resurrected and in search of its fourth Super Bowl championship.
It is using much the same formula it used four years ago to upset the Patriots: an overpowering defence and crisp Eli Manning passes. If they beat the Patriots again, the Giants would be the first 9-7 team to win a Super Bowl. “That play at the end of the game – it gave us an opportunity at the end of the game,” Coughlin said. “No team was able to move the ball.”
Kyle Williams will be remembered as the karmic antithesis of Tynes and Tyree. He muffed a punt in the fourth quarter that allowed the Giants to score a touchdown that gave them a three-point lead. “You hate to be the last guy that had the ball,” said Williams, whose fumble in overtime was recovered by Devin Thomas. “To give it up that way in that fashion and to lose a game of this magnitude. It is what it is. We’re going to move forward as a team. Everyone has come to pat me on the back and the shoulder and say it’s not on me.”
The Giants lost the fourth-quarter lead on a 49ers field goal that tied the game, but in a game in which defences dominated – the Giants forced four straight three-and-out San Francisco possessions at the end of the game – those special-teams plays saved the Giants’ season. “We had to fight for every yard we got,” said Manning, who finished 32 of 58 for 316 yards and two touchdowns, and was under duress for much of the night.
New England escaped when Ravens kicker Billy Cundiff hooked a 32-yard field-goal attempt wide left with 12 seconds remaining.
“It’s a kick I’ve kicked a thousand times, and I just went out there and I didn’t convert,” Cundiff said. As the ball sailed outside the goal post, the Ravens stood on their sideline as if their feet were entombed in concrete while the Patriots spilled on to the field, overcome with euphoria, with that feeling many of them know so well. Of returning to the Super Bowl.
New York Times Service
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