Just got home from Giants Stadium.
What a great game by the Redskins! What horrible weather: before the game, the right-side goalpost ribbons (as seen from the TV side) were blowing out horizontally while the opposite goal post (leads to the locker rooms) was drooping. At mid-field, the color-guard had to furl the flags which were almost blowing off the poles...at a 90 degree angle to the goal-post indicating flags.
Amazing wind.
Through most of the 1st Q it was raining and splattering ice pellets.
- good job by the coaches to prepare the team through all that
- gritty play to get the first two FG's. Somehow, I knew after the first that the Redskins would win
- so much wind that it's hard to blame Manning for many of the misses...the ball just took off in strange directions.
- Collins doesn't have the arm to over-power that kind of wind, but I remember Jay Schroeder being stymied by the same wind. Collins played smart, threw smart.
- Collins might have run a few times for good yardage...if he was Jason Campbell. Clearly not a running QB, not a scrambler, but he seemed to know when to dump a pass just before getting hit.
- Portis is a delight to watch. I mean it's just plain fun to see him get a little room and speed up, slow down, weave around defenders, and then burst when he sees an opening. Betts is smooth and smart, but Portis is able to do things that Betts can't
- Thinking about how the Redskins need a tall receiver, I can see why they do
not need Burress. PB catches passes that others wouldn't get because he is tall and has talent, but he often doesn't try hard. Example: ball thrown slightly off-target -- a 50/50 ball -- and Smoot (I think) dives and nearly intercepts it. Burress was closer, when the ball was thrown, but just stood. Happened again and again.
- So there are big receivers, and then there are big receivers who are real football players. Maybe the second is rare...that's Art Monk, the future Hall of Famer (ahem!)
- Redskins clearly were the better team.
- Amusing to watch Marcus Washington pick up the Giant fans' hand-clapping, and turn it into a motivator for the defense. A classy player.
- Must have been awful to wait for the TV commercials, trying to keep warm on the field.
- Smoot is special. Watching him cover tight, watching him scramblle for every ball and hit big guys like Jacobs, it's clear that Smoot is special.
- Giants dropped an amazing number of dead-on passes. That helped. I didn't see a Redskin drop a catchable pass...closest was a pass to
ey that was ripped away from him by a defender who hit him from behind before he had a chance to pull the ball to his chest.
- The Giants pass rush is very good. Wish the Redskins had it...the defense would be unbeatable.
- Thinking about it, I think Manning had an unusual number of passes batted down or into the air. Someone with a statistical taste might look it up, but it seemed that way.
- Surprising that many Giant "fans" left at half-time after booing their team. Many others left at the end of the third Q.
- When the Redskins defense had taken the ball back for the last time, had moved near the 40 yard line. There a real Giant fan welcomed us to "his" section, saying he was the only regular at the game. He apologized for the behavior of "the idiots" and "the rookies", as he called them, who had thrown snowballs at Redskin fans and picked fights. Changed my opinion of Giant fans, which had placed them somewhere with Eagles and Philadelphia Flyer fans. This fellow has been a season ticket holder since 1975, he said. A real fan.
Personally...it was a wonderful Christmas present to an old dad...
[edited for typos]
