Un-freakin-believable

The Giants, thanks to the Falcons’ loss on Saturday night, had the driver’s seat to the Wild Card. Beat Philly at home, and they are nearly a lock to make the playoffs. Against a Philly defense that gave up 171 yards to Ladell Betts last week, and 239 yards to the Indy RBs a few weeks back, you’d figure the Giants would go with a heavy dose of Tiki and Brandon Jacobs. Instead, despite never really being behind by large amounts, the Giants threw the ball 40 times, and ran Tiki just 17. Their case was not helped by bad fumbles by Jacobs and Visanthe Shiancoe, and bad deflection-interceptions by Eli Manning (you could argue that the picks weren’t Eli’s fault, but he threw one directly into a stationary defender’s helmet, and should have felt the pressure from a blitzer on the other deflection). The Giants’ interior defense was exposed, as the Eagles popped off big runs straight up the gut and multiple occasions, including Brian Westbrook’s 28 yard TD run. The Giants are still in the playoffs via a tie-breaker over Atlanta, but have a tough game against New Orleans this week while Atlanta plays stumbling Carolina. Not good.
My fantasy football season, while technically over last week, officially ended with a loss in the consolation bracket this week. My poor lineup choices caught up with me the last two weeks, and this week I benched Jay Cutler (19), Thomas Jones (14.5) and Laveranues Coles (25) in favor of Brett Favre (3), Chester Taylor (3), and Devery Henderson (3). I take some consolation in the fact that my team would have beaten 3 of the 4 playoff teams this week. There’s always next year.