Third Tynes a charm for New York
GREEN BAY, Wis. – While his New York Giants teammates danced around Lambeau Field and the Green Bay Packers absorbed a reality even colder than Sunday’s arctic temperatures, Lawrence Tynes disappeared down a tunnel and into the locker room.
Tynes simply raised a right index finger as he ran joyously past a stunned crowd of 72,740.
He was headed to a cherished spot in Giants lore.
His team is off to Arizona. The Packers are staying home.
Tynes booted a 47-yard field goal in overtime to send the Giants into Super Bowl XLII against the New England Patriots on Feb. 3 in Glendale, Ariz., ending an improbable Packers season and more than compensating for his two fourth-quarter misses.
“I screwed it up twice,” Tynes said of misses from 43 and 36 yards. “Thank God we got another opportunity. This team worked its butt off the whole game.”
The kick continued an unlikely postseason run for the tough-minded NFC wild-card qualifier that won its third straight road game in January and ruined many a winter in Wisconsin.
It was a historic night. Besides game-time temperatures of minus-23 windchill making it the second-coldest game at Lambeau, it also was the first NFC Championship game to go into overtime since the Falcons beat the Vikings 30-27 on Jan. 17, 1999.
The Packers had everything required for a classic finish: the ball to begin overtime, a home-field crowd re-energized despite frigid temperatures and Brett Favre behind center.
But on the second play of overtime, Favre tried hitting Donald Driver on an out pattern he has thrown thousands of times. The ball sailed and Giants cornerback Corey Webster stepped in front of Driver to intercept the errant pass at the Packers 43, taking it 9 yards before being stopped. Three plays later, Tynes kicked the game-winner.
“I kind of figured they would be looking to go to him. I got a good jam on him at the line of scrimmage and then I was able to jump the route a little bit.”
Favre also had a chance to enhance his legend with 2:48 left in regulation when the Packers got the ball back at their own 17 with the game tied. But instead of authoring another made-for-Canton moment, he threw two incompletions and settled for a 5-yard pass to tight end Donald Lee well short of the chains on third down.
“I thought we had this one,” Favre said. “Everything seemed to fall in line for us. You have got to give the Giants credit.”
New York overcame its own late erratic streak.
Besides Tynes’ two misses, former Bear R.W. McQuarters fumbled twice in the fourth quarter and both miscues nearly cost the Giants.
McQuarters’ first gaffe actually let Favre off the hook. With 14:18 left in regulation, Favre spun out of a sack attempt by Osi Umenyiora and tried to hit Koren Robinson deep when McQuarters intercepted the underthrown ball.
On the return, McQuarters was stripped by running back Ryan Grant and Packers tackle Mark Tauscher recovered at the Giants’ 19. The Packers converted that gift into a 37-yard Mason Crosby field goal they would need to force overtime.
Later, with 2:30 left, McQuarters struck again. With the Giants needing only a field goal, McQuarters returned a punt 10 yards to the Packers 38 before getting stripped by Tracey White. Two Packers, Jarrett Bush and Brady Poppinga, each had a chance to recover but it slipped through their hands and under a scrum. In the pile, New York’s Domenik Hixon wrestled the ball away to keep it out of Favre’s hands for another shot at a game-winning drive.
On the first play of that drive, the Giants had the apparent go-ahead touchdown – a 48-yard burst by Ahmad Bradshaw – negated by a holding call by guard Chris Snee. Snee happens to be coach Tom Coughlin’s son-in-law. Wouldn’t that have made for an interesting family reunion if that play would have prevented the Giants from the Super Bowl?
It didn’t, largely because Eli Manning chose this moment, this month really, to come of age. Manning ensured that the Super Bowl will feature a member of his family for the second straight season with an efficient performance that will quiet many of his critics – at least until the second quarter of the Super Bowl.
He outplayed Favre by completing 21 of 40 passes for 254 yards, his third straight playoff game without an interception.
“I might be a hard guy to read sometime but right now I’m as happy as I can be,” Manning said.
The smile was even bigger on the face of Plaxico Burress, who caught 11 of Manning’s passes for 154 yards. Burress got the best of a physical one-on-one matchup with Packers cornerback Al Harris.
The passing game benefited from the way the Giants pounded the run with the 1-2 combination of Bradshaw and 264-pound brute Brandon Jacobs. Jacobs, who set the tone for the game by flattening Charles Woodson on his first carry, gained 67 yards on 21 carries and Bradshaw added 63 on 16.
Jacobs punished the Packers defense so physically on some runs that players weren’t being credited for tackling him as much as they were sentenced.
The Giants’ most pivotal drive came to open the third quarter when they ate up 7:04 and marched 69 yards on 12 plays to make everybody in the stadium feel a little colder. After Jacobs plunged in from 1 yard, he faked a Lambeau Leap.
The emotion in a winning locker room was the real thing – and so are these Giants.