PLAY POST PICK ‘EMST. LOUIS – The champs weren’t exactly on the ropes, but there was the potential for a little wobble in their legs.
The Giants’ lead yesterday afternoon had shrunk to 20-13 and the fans who bothered to show up inside the Edward Jones Dome stopped booing the home team long enough to actually consider the possibility of an upset.
If there was a time for the Road Warriors to falter, this would be it.
Or not.
“We never wavered, that’s the attitude we had and we answered the bell when we needed to,” Plaxico Burress said.
Featuring their outrageous depth, the Giants unleashed the likes of Ahmad Bradshaw and Domenik Hixon and scored three touchdowns in less than four minutes to close out a 41-13 dismantling of the Rams in a game at times workmanlike in its efficiency and at times dizzying in its domination.
“I like the fact how we put our foot in the ground and came back,” defensive end Justin Tuck said. “That’s a mark of a champion. Lucky for us we were really able to impose our will in the fourth quarter.”
Luck had nothing to do with it. Bradshaw did not touch the ball on offense for the first seven quarters of the season and then erupted for an 18-yard touchdown catch off a swing pass, followed closely by a 31-yard touchdown run. In between, Hixon made a 32-yard over-the-shoulder grab and Tuck finished off an overwhelming performance (he already had two of the Giants’ six sacks of Marc Bulger) when he tried to deflect a pass and instead had the ball stick in his shoulder pad for an interception.
Tuck rumbled 41 yards for his first career touchdown, slowing down near the end zone for dramatic effect.
“I was thinking about that Leon Lett play,” Tuck said. “Luckily I was able to look up at the Jumbotron and see I had enough room to slow down.
“I don’t need to sprint in the end zone. Act like you’ve been there before.”
As the Giants (2-0) surged to their 12th consecutive victory away from home, they flicked away the dreadful Rams (0-2) without much difficulty. An extremely steady Eli Manning (three TD passes) hit a wide-open Burress for a 33-yard scoring pass for an early lead and then systematically picked apart a lousy defensive backfield.
Once, Manning escaped the grasp of defensive end James Hall and with his left arm actually completed a 2-yard pass to Brandon Jacobs, a feat he has never before accomplished in his NFL career.
“The guy just has a hold of my right arm,” Manning said. “I do [throw lefty] sometimes. I don’t know why I do it. I’m not bad at it, but I wouldn’t say I’m great at it.”
Right-handed, Manning also hit Amani Toomer for a touchdown to complete an impressive 97-yard third-quarter drive but the real damage was inflicted on the ground, with Jacobs (15-93), Derrick Ward (8-58) and Bradshaw (5-52) accounting for the Giants’ 200 rushing yards.
Tuck and Fred Robbins (two sacks) were the ringleaders of a defensive charge that has come out smoking early in the season. Clearly, the Rams wanted to feature running back Steven Jackson, but the Giants were ready for him on the ground (13-53) and in the air (7-37).
“This is a new year and this is our first road game,” Tom Coughlin said. “We challenged our team. We put the term ‘Road Warriors’ on the board and we talked about all the values and virtues we compiled and the success of last year. It was the same thing today.”