The anger of past weeks, the frustration, the bitterness, the assigning of blame was nowhere to be seen. The new feeling for the Giants is now disbelief. Welcome to Club Clueless.
They don’t know how they got here. It appears the Giants at the moment know very little, other than that their season has all-but slipped away. Last week, the Giants played for first place; they wake up today in fourth-place in the weak NFC East. The last trump-card they held was putting Kerry Collins in as the starting quarterback, but there was more of the same slop as the Giants, Collins and a suddenly-soft defense did the unthinkable: They allowed the Cardinals yesterday to march into Giants Stadium and act as if they owned the place, which is mind-boggling, and rolled over in a despicable 34-24 loss that could have damaging reverberations past this now-sorry season.
This was a total, complete tank-job that left the Giants at 5-6, saddled with a three-game losing streak and absolutely unable to explain their dramatic plummet. In a setback that might one day be pointed to as the acceleration of a downward spiral that costs Jim Fassel his job, the Giants stunk up the joint every which way.
Collins ran for a touchdown and threw for 298 yards — the most by a Giants quarterback in more than three years — but more significantly, he threw three interceptions and lost one fumble. Scoring 24 points should have been enough, but it wasn’t close, because the tough-talking Giants defense was silenced by the offensively-challenged Cardinals and a 28-point second-half surge directed by Jake Plummer.
What was left afterward was a team incapable of describing what went wrong.
“I’ve been here through some of the good times and the bad, and I can really tell you this is probably the lowest I felt in a while,” Keith Hamilton said.
Jessie Armstead, usually front-and-center in good times and bad, made a hasty exit without saying a word. Sounding bewildered, Michael Strahan repeated himself about 10 times when asked to explain this troubling loss. “I’m still wondering how in the world they got 34 points and how we gave up 34,” Strahan said. “That’s really it. I’m in shock or something. I just don’t see how it happened. I’m being honest.”
Collins, who made some big plays but could not overcome all his turnovers, will start the remaining five games, beginning with Sunday’s Who’s Worst Bowl against the 4-7 Jets. “We’re still in it,” Collins said. “We’ve got five games left and let’s be honest. We probably have to win all of them.”
At the moment, they can’t win any of them, not this way.
It is understandable that an emotionally-drained Fassel did not rip into the Giants. He boards a flight this morning to attend the funeral for his mother, Dorothy, who died Wednesday at the age of 76 and will be buried tomorrow in a Santa Ana, Calif. He admitted “It has been difficult to keep my focus and stay on top of things” and blamed himself for the Giants dismal performance. “Obviously, I didn’t do a good enough job,” Fassel said.
There were times when the Giants looked as if they’d get past the Cardinals, who are 5-6 and ahead of the Giants because they’ve swept the season series. Collins (22 of 45, 298 yards, 1 TD, 3 INTs) scored on a sneak to make it 7-3 and the Giants led 10-6 at halftime. Ex-Giant Dave Brown (11 of 17, 126 yards) played adequately in the first half but was replaced by Plummer (12 of 18, 125 yards, 2 TDs), who was the spark that ignited the Cards.
Fassel gambled by choosing to get the fairly stiff wind with his offense in the third quarter, but the Giants had the ball for only 3:09 and in that time accumulated one yard of total offense. Collins was intercepted by Rob Fredrickson on a pass off Amani Toomer’s shoulder and Plummer cashed in on a TD pass to Rob Moore that came only after cornerback Phillippi Sparks — who had a miserable game — had a would-be interception stolen away by Moore. A penalty on Strahan kept an Arizona drive going and led to Plummer’s scoring strike to Johnny McWilliams to make it 20-10 five seconds into the fourth quarter.
With all that, it was all right there for the Giants, as Sean Bennett scored his first NFL touchdown to cap an impressive 88-yard drive. There was a full 8:51 remaining, the Giants trailed by only 20-17 and looked poised to make a fast finish and pump some life into their season. Instead, they sucked the air right out of the season.
First, Cary Blanchard — whose short kickoffs have been extremely costly — sent his kick out of bounds, allowing the Cards to set up shop at their own 40-yard line. Things deteriorated from there. When Mario Bates leaped into the end zone from two yards out, the Giants once-mighty defense had officially wilted, powerless to prevent the Cardinals from surging ahead 27-17.
“It was a little bit of disbelief,” Tiki Barber said of the view from the sideline. “Usually in that situation our defense is going to come through. It’s not too often you see them crumble like that.”
The Giants weren’t coming back from 10 points down. Collins fired his second interception, forcing one into Ike Hilliard that Aeneas Williams picked off, and not long after tossed his third, suffering an ignominious close to his highly-anticipated start. The game was already long gone when Collins had his pass deflected into the air by Brad Ottis and into the arms of Eric Swann. The 317-pound Swann rumbled 42 yards, with Collins giving chase, for the in-your-face TD that made it 34-17 and added another thick layer of humilation on the Giants.
“What was I thinking? Nothing that can really be repeated,” Collins said. “”It was total exasperation.”
It was a common feeling. Welcome to the club, Kerry.