In the aftermath of the Giants’ 38-35 loss to the unbeaten Packers— tying the game in the final minute, only to see Green Bay win on the game’s final play — much of the talk in the Big Blue locker room wasn’t about the men in green-and-yellow, but the men in black-and-white, about bad calls, not their own bad defense.
Several close calls went against the Giants, and in the end they didn’t do enough to overcome those or the Packers.
“You have to knock them out. You can’t allow them to linger around and think that things are just going to go your way,” Justin Tuck said. “They’re the champs: They’re going to get every call. The ball’s going to bounce their way. You have outplay them. … We played to a draw up until that last field goal. You have to knock them out.’’
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One that vexed them came on third-and-10 from the Green Bay 36 with 9:58 left to play and the Giants down 28-27. Defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul helped force a sack by Dave Tollefson, what would have been an 11-yard loss and given the Giants the ball back in good field position. But linebacker Jacquian Williams was flagged for illegal contact on tight end Jermichael Finley, giving the Packers a first down.
“Don’t get me started on calls,’’ Tuck said. “It’s frustrating. … I didn’t see an illegal contact, but I don’t get paid to make those calls.’’
Coach Tom Coughlin gets paid to make decisions on challenges, and has a great record on such calls. But yesterday he lost two of them, the first on a pass to tight end Jake Ballard in the end zone for a potential first-quarter TD. Ballard was ruled out of bounds before getting his left foot down, and Coughlin lost that challenge.
Then he challenged a Donald Driver reception on the sideline in the third quarter, which went against the Giants as well. Both appeared to be correct, with the second challenge an egregious mistake by Coughlin.
“We thought we had a couple angles that proved they’d be going our way. I don’t have any other information other than they didn’t,’’ said Coughlin.
“A lot of reviews that could’ve gone either way it seemed like, but obviously they got the calls right,’’ Eli Manning said. “But it seemed like ours they didn’t call touchdowns, theirs they called touchdowns.’’