Trey Junkin still remembers the unsolicited advice he got from someone on the Giants sideline just before he went out to snap for a potential game-winning field goal nine years ago against the Niners at Candlestick Park.
“Just make it a nice, easy snap,” someone said.
In his 19 years as a punt and field goal snapper in the NFL, no one had said something like that to Junkin and it lodged in an uncomfortable spot in his brain.
“I’d never thought it before,” Junkin told The Post from his home in Winnfield, La. “I never thought about snapping the football while I was on the football field ever. It’s just something that I did. It just happened. For the first time in 19 years, I got over a football and started thinking about what I was doing. As soon as I did that, it was over.”
Junkin turns 51 on Monday. But what happened nine years ago still haunts him to this day. The Giants were attempting a 40-yard field goal with six seconds remaining in their Jan. 5, 2003, playoff game against the Niners. They had blown a 24-point lead, but still had a chance to win, trailing 39-38, when coach Jim Fassel called for the field goal on third down. Junkin had submitted his retirement papers earlier in the year, but got a call from the Giants, who signed him four days before the game because Fassel was concerned about the snap, hold and kick operation.
“He thought that was the perfect opportunity to finally get a ring that after 19 years had been eluding him,” Junkin’s wife Sarah said. “He had a lot of confidence and a lot of faith in that team. If it had been a different team, he might have said no.”
But the dream of a Super Bowl turned into a nightmare. It started with a bad snap from Junkin. Low and wide left, holder Matt Allen could only trap it on the ground. He could have downed it there and attempted another field goal on fourth down. But instead he got up and scrambled to his right. He wound up throwing a desperate incomplete pass to Rich Seubert, an eligible receiver who was tackled before the ball got there.
Pass interference should have been called. Instead the officials flagged the Giants for an ineligible receiver downfield. The next day the NFL apologized for blowing the call, but that was little consolation to Junkin, who retired for good after that game.
It was one of two bad snaps on the day for Junkin, who laments that after nearly two decade of anonymity in the NFL, his name always comes up when there’s an issue with a long snapper.
“I still think about it,” he said. “The funny thing is I’ve had over 1,700 punt snaps and had two bad ones. I don’t even know how many field goal and extra-point snaps I had and I had four bad ones. Two of them happened in that game. Yeah, I think about them. I’m a perfectionist.”
While Junkin constantly accepts blame for the botched field goal, saying “That snap is my fault” about a dozen times during the interview, he did offer insight as to what might have influenced the miscue. It began on the sidelines.
“During a typical game, I snap constantly on the sidelines,” he said. “While the offense has the ball and moving down the field, I’m constantly punt snapping. As soon as they cross midfield and reach the 40, I’m short snapping. Get the stroke; get the rhythm; get the feel. I wasn’t afforded that opportunity after the second quarter because nobody wanted to catch the snaps. I had someone who worked in the equipment room catching for me.”
“I’m not laying it on that,” he said. “You know how many footballs I’ve snapped since I was 9 years old? I ought to be able to do that in my sleep.”
He also mentioned the positioning of the spot. “Look where the spot is,” he said. “Where’d they line up to kick the ball? Was it directly behind the football or was it over my right foot?”
Again the disclaimer: “I was a professional snapper. That is not the reason for the snap. I messed it up. I’m not putting it on the hold and I’m not putting it on the spot. The reason for the snap is because I went out there. I stood over that football and I thought about what I was doing. That’s why that snap was bad.”
There’s part of Junkin’s soul that knows the loss isn’t totally his fault. You can hear it in his voice. “I’ve always stood up and owned that snap,” he said. “That’s mine. But it was on third down. The referee blew the call at the end of the game. Those were not my fault. The [lost] 21-point lead at halftime was not my fault. I didn’t play any offense or any defense. I played 11 snaps. Two of them were (bad), especially the last one. I have stood up and owned all of it for nine years. I think it’s about time for everybody to stand up and own everything they did in that game, don’t you?”
Sarah and Trey Junkin have been married 29 years and have raised two sons. Ask her how her husband dealt with that final game, she says: “It took a while. I can’t even describe it. To have your last snap be that memory has been tough on him,” she said. “Somebody had to take the blame and he took it. He wants it to not have happened, but he can’t undo it. He still thinks about it and always will.”
george.willis@nypost.com