PHILADELPHIA – As the ball sailed higher and higher into the damp chilled air, one thought raced through the mind of Amani Toomer, the veteran receiver who has been through so many battles eerily similar to this one with the Eagles.
“As it was going up I was thinking ‘This game shouldn’t be this close, it really shouldn’t,’ ” Toomer said.
No matter what the Giants thought, close was where the Giants were, locked in another of those down-and-dirty, inelegant scrums with the hated Eagles. David Akers, whose left foot ended the Giants’ season last year, was lined up to try to send yesterday’s latest grudge match into overtime. Five seconds remained and the Giants, again making life difficult for themselves, fought back and put the Eagles in a tough spot, needing a 57-yard field goal.
Akers hit it clean and true. “I just prayed as soon as that ball was up, it looked like it had the distance and it was down the middle and it just bowed to the right,” Giants rookie safety Craig Dahl said after his first career start.
The kick had plenty of distance. “All I know is the dude booted the hell out of the ball,” said linebacker Antonio Pierce, who was not supposed to play, but did. “You could hear it from the sidelines.
“It looked good and we were getting ready to go into overtime.”
The ball hooked late and careened off the right upright, halfway up, bouncing harmlessly out of the way as the Giants celebrated a 16-13 victory at Lincoln Financial Field that virtually assures them of their third consecutive NFC playoff appearance.
“All I know is the ball bounced our way,” Pierce said. “You can call it whatever you want, just call it a victory.”
Describe it as the call of the wild (card), as the Giants (9-4) can clinch a playoff spot with a victory Sunday night against the Redskins and even if they don’t win another game, have done everything but mathematically seal up a postseason berth. They’ll hit the road in the playoffs, and they’re 6-1 away from home after another of their typical high-wire road success stories.
“An incredible game and right from the start we knew it was going to be that way,” Tom Coughlin said.
It didn’t have to be that way. The offense, again erratic, hurt itself with two lost fumbles by Brandon Jacobs (he disputed the first), who returned after missing two games with a strained hamstring. The Giants trailed 7-6 at halftime but only by 10-6 in the third quarter after a gallant defensive stand after Jacobs’ first fumble handed the Eagles the ball on the Giants’ 8-yard line.
Slow-starting Eli Manning – who did not throw an interception in a game for only the second time this season – finally got cooking, uncovering a long-lost big-play target in Plaxico Burress (7-136), who scored the Giants’ lone touchdown when Manning correctly diagnosed an all-out blitz and hit Burress on a well-executed slant to make it a 13-10 Giants lead. It was 16-10 entering the fourth quarter.
The Giants played without their two starting safeties, Gibril Wilson and James Butler, and the replacements, rookies, Dahl and Michael Johnson, did not allow a pass play longer than 19 yards.
Pierce started despite missing the week of practice with a sprained right ankle and somehow, the defense survived the talents of Brian Westbrook (20-116 rushing, 5-38, 1 TD receiving) and spoiled the return of quarterback Donovan McNabb.
An Akers field goal with 8:36 left cut the Giants’ lead to 16-13, but the Giants looked to be sitting pretty when Jacobs rumbled 21 yards to the Philly 5-yard line. Jacobs, though, was stripped of the ball by defensive end Juqua Thomas. The Eagles drove to the Giants’ 44-yard line when, on fourth down, McNabb fired to receiver Jason Avant but Pierce, draped all over Avant, knocked the ball away as the Eagles screamed for pass interference and the Giants took over with 1:57 to go.
“The play of the game,” defensive end Justin Tuck said. “That’s what we come to expect from him. He’s our Superman.”
The Giants ran the clock down, the Eagles burned their timeouts and got the ball back on their 11-yard line with 53 seconds left. Three McNabb completions gave Akers one last shot.
“I don’t know,” said Michael Strahan, when asked about the personality of this Giants team, “but I know it’s one that’s going to give me a heart attack if we keep winning like this.”