THANKS! Giants linebacker Chase Blackburn picks up a fumble by Packers running back Ryan Grant during last year’s 37-20 Big Blue playoff win. Packers linebacker Clay Matthews whined afterward, “They didn’t beat us, we beat ourselves.” (
)
The Giants will not be wearing their diamond-and-sapphire encrusted Super Bowl rings when they take the field Sunday night. The Vince Lombardi Trophy won’t be paraded in and put on display at midfield for the coin toss.
No, the only way for the Giants to remind the invading Packers who the real champions are is to prove it on the field, again.
“We know they’re going to come in [ticked] off about last year and we have to be ready for that intensity,’’ guard Chris Snee said.
Through 16 games last season, the high-flying Packers were the uncrowned champs, 15-1 and big favorites to handle a Giants squad that finished the regular season at 9-7. What was supposed to be a formality of an NFC divisional playoff game instead became a launching pad for one team and a gangplank for the other. The Giants soared, the Packers sunk.
And then the Packers yakked about it.
“The fact is, they didn’t beat us, we beat ourselves,’’ all-world linebacker Clay Matthews said back in the summer, adding, “We picked the most inopportune time to play our worst ball.’’
In training camp the Giants, still aglow from their astounding title run, had their say about this slight, with Snee mentioning the shiny new ring he earned and Justin Tuck saying if the Packers beat themselves then who was it that caused all those fumbles and got all those sacks? Everyone got a good chuckle and moved on. Until now.
“Maybe we got lucky,’’ Snee deadpanned the other day, clearly still recalling the fallout from last January’s 37-20 shocker at Lambeau Field. “Talk is talk, if they want to fire some comments over here that’s fine. Can’t predict what’s going to happen. Why, did B.J. say something again?’’
Not yet, but defensive tackle B.J. Raji, prior to last year’s playoff game, credited the Giants running backs as being “pretty physical’’ but didn’t stop there, calling the offensive line “not the toughest o-line. Not saying they’re soft but not the toughest group I’ve gone against.’’
Much like last Dec. 4, a regular-season meeting with the Packers will tell the Giants what they need to know about themselves. They had lost three straight and were coming off a rock-bottom 49-24 demolition at the hands of the Saints in New Orleans when the unbeaten (11-0) Packers came to town. The Giants tied the game with 58 seconds remaining but Aaron Rodgers needed less than a minute to assemble a field-goal drive as the Packers won 38-35 and left town 12-0.
That game showed the Giants they could compete with the best team in the league. It also revealed the vulnerability in the Green Bay defense which Eli Manning exploited that day and again five weeks later. In two games against the woeful Packers’ defense, Manning passed for 677 yards and six touchdowns.
In response, the Packers used their first six picks in the NFL Draft on defensive players. At times in last week’s 24-20 victory over the Lions, they had six rookies on the field for a defense playing without injured veterans Matthews, Charles Woodson and Sam Shields.
The Giants, 6-4 and riding a two-game losing streak, need to win and just as critically need to play well, something they haven’t done since before Halloween. The Packers, 7-3 and rolling in with a five-game winning streak, are the hottest team in the NFC and suddenly tied with the Bears for first place in the NFC North.
If that isn’t motivation enough, the Packers no doubt still cannot believe the Giants came into their home in last year’s playoffs and eliminated the Super Bowl favorites.
“Any time you get knocked out, whenever we get knocked out I’m not happy,’’ Snee said. “You remember that from the previous year.’’
The Packers remember. The question: Do the Giants remember how to do it again?
Thanks, but no thanks
Wellington Mara was never opposed to playing on Thanksgiving but he did not rise up and insist the Giants play on the most classic of American holidays. When a league proposal came down to rotate the Thanksgiving games, Mara the traditionalist stood up and stated he felt the games should stay in Dallas and Detroit.
In the past 30 years the Giants have played only three times on Thanksgiving: at Detroit in 1982 (a 13-6 victory), at Dallas in 1992 (a 30-3 loss) and at Denver in 2009 (a 26-6 loss). Before 1982 the Giants hadn’t played on Thanksgiving since 1938.
John Mara has no issue with the Giants taking their turn playing on Thanksgiving — on the road. He wasn’t pleased three years ago when “on the road’’ turned out to be about as far as you can get, to the mile-high altitude of Denver.
As far as home games on Thanksgiving, Mara has always said the same thing: No thanks.
“We have never volunteered to host a game on Thanksgiving because I just don’t think our fans would want it,’’ Mara told The Post.
That is the exact scenario Woody Johnson craves for his Jets, which is why for the second time in three years they are playing on Thanksgiving night, at home. Different strokes for different franchises.
Big Blue cursed?
Jason Pierre-Paul has been with the Giants for three years and, like clockwork, he has seen his team reach 6-2 then experience a November swoon.
“It’s like every year it’s the same thing,’’ Pierre-Paul said yesterday on SiriusXM NFL Radio. “I don’t know. It must be a curse or something. But it’s like every year is the same thing and we pick it up and once we get going, we just get going. Once we have that mentality that no team can beat us but ourselves, we play so good, like excellent, like no team can beat us.