Bye Week: Five Best Wins and Losses (in my biggest fan years)

Since the Giants are on a bye this week, I don’t have much to discuss. And since the Giants have gone from Super Bowl winners a year and a half ago, to a measly two and six this year, I figured that it would be fitting to talk about the five best wins and five best losses for the Giants over the past couple of years. Mostly through the latter Fassel/Collins years and the Coughlin/Manning years.
Some of these games I look over in great fondness. Some of them make me want to throw my computer through a window.

Worst Losses:

Honorable mentions:

Panthers at Giants - 2005/2006 Playoffs NFC Wild Card Round
Score: CAR 23 - NYG 0
January 8th, 2006
This game sticks out because this was the Giants first playoff shutout in twenty years. New York was out matched on every level. These games happen, but the fact it happened in the playoffs puts it into consideration.

Cowboys at Giants
Score: DAL 35 - NYG 32
September 15th, 2003
“The Matt Bryant Game”
If this was a playoff game, or was late in the year, it would be in the top five. If you remember this game, the Giants scored eighteen points in the fourth quarter to get the lead with only eleven seconds left. Matt Bryant, the Giants kicker, was told to squib kick the ball instead of the usual kick off. The ball goes out of bounds which is an illegal procedure penalty. With the good field position from the penalty and only eleven ticks off the clock, the ‘Boys tie the game and eventually win in overtime. Here’s a game that was blown by special teams. Spoiler alert... it’s not the only one I talk about. 

Here are the official top 5.

Yeah, keep leaning, jerk. It's still wide left.

5 - Giants at Seahawks
Score: SEA 24 - NYG 21
November 27th, 2005
“The Jay Feely Game”
Getting a win in Seattle can be tough. But it’s damn near impossible when your kicker missed three consecutive field goals. The first of three misses was with four seconds left in regulation. That would have sent the Giants back home with a win. Feely then missed two field goals in overtime. IN OVERTIME! I would say that this game was like Feely kicking Giants’ fans in the teeth, but he’d probably miss. Chalk up another heartbreaker to a special teams flub up.

4 - Giants vs Ravens - Super Bowl XXXV
Score: BAL 34 - NYG 7
January 28, 2001
This was just a straight up ass whoopin’. Like Daniel LaRusso getting attacked by a bunch of black belts high schoolers dressed as skeletons. Even when the Giants got some momentum with a kick off return for a touchdown, the Ravens took the momentum back when they returned the following kick off with a touchdown of their own. But for as bad as it was, at least they made it to the Super Bowl. So there’s that silver lining.

3 - Giants vs Eagles - 2008/2009 NFC Divisional Round
Score: PHI 23 - NYG 11
January 11, 2009
Coming off a Super Bowl winning season, the Giants were in good shape to repeat by having a record of eleven and one. But then in the middle of the season, their stud receiver Plaxico Burress shot himself in the leg. They ended up finishing with a twelve and four record.
After having a bye for the Wild Card round, the Giants squared off against the Eagles. It did not go well. The Giants could not score one single touchdown during the game. Considering it was their shot to have back-to-back Super Bowl wins, this loss really stings.

2 - Giants vs Eagles
Score: PHI 38 - NYG 31
December 19, 2010
“The Matt Dodge Game”
For a regular season loss, this was more of a heartbreaker than the ending of Old Yeller. Giants' punter, Matt Dodge, was a colossal screw up. He made Amanda Bynes look like Maya Angelou.

"Roses are red, oysters are shucked; Glad Dodge is gone, 'cause that guy sucked."

At the beginning of the fourth quarter, the Giants were up thirty-one to ten. But the Eagles scored
three touchdowns in six minutes to tie the game up at thirty-one. Since the “winning the game in four quarters” ship has sailed, the Giants were going to try to win the game in overtime. With only a few seconds to go in regulation, all Dodge had to was punt the ball out of bounds, away from the explosive DeSean Jackson, and the Giants will live to see another day. However, Dodge kicks the ball right to Jackson and Jackson proceeded to return the punt for a touchdown to win the game for the Eagles. It looks like the Giants still can’t figure out how to cover a punt return.

1 - Giants at 49ers - 2002/2003 NFC Wild Card Round
Score: SF 39 - NYG 38
January 5, 2003
“The Trey Junkin/Blown Call Game”
This game was the perfect storm of a horrible game. It was a playoff game, the Giants gave up a big lead, there was a monumental screw up by someone on the team, and the officials didn’t do their job correctly so their season, and their Super Bowl aspirations, ended with a blown call.
When the fourth quarter started the Giants were up thirty-eight to twenty-two. Then the 49ers score seventeen points to take a one point lead. But here’s where the game from bad, to disastrous:

I dunno, looks like a mugging to me.

Meet Trey Junkin. He was a long time NFL long snapper who came out of retirement to play for the Giants during the playoffs. With only a few seconds left of the game the Giants line up for a game-winning field goal. Junkin botches the snap and all hell breaks loose. Matt Allen, the Giants’ place holder, tried make some magic happen and throw the ball downfield. Offensive lineman Tam Hopkins was flagged as an ineligible man downfield. But a penalty wasn’t called when Rich Seubert, who was an eligible receiver, was in position to catch the ball that Matt Allen chucked in the air, but was absolutely mugged by the 49ers defensive end Chike Okeafor. A pass interference penalty should have been called. This means that there should have been offsetting penalties and the Giants should have gotten another crack at a game winning field goal. But no such luck as the Giants blow a big lead and the refs blow a big call. But it’s okay, because the Giants got an official apology from the NFL’s director of officiating, Mike Pereira.

Best Wins:

"That's my quarterback, and this is my sad face."

5 - Giants at Cowboys - 2007/2008 NFC Divisional Round
Score: NYG 21 - DAL 17
January 13, 2008
“The ‘That’s my Quarterback’ Game’”
There wasn’t really anything special about this game. The Giants just played better than the Cowboys. The fact that the Giants beat the Cowboys in Dallas to end their season was reason enough to include this game. Plus, the loss made Terrell Owens cry over his Cabo sun tanned quarterback, Tony Romo, so that’s a nice cherry on the “Romo can’t win the big one” sundae.

4 - Giants at 49ers - 2011/2012 NFC Championship
Score: NYG 20 - SF 17
January 22, 2012
“The Kyle Williams Game”
This game was a tough, gritty, old school football game. The Giants, especially Eli Manning, showed a lot of guts this game. He got his ass kicked almost every possession the Giants had. But he hung in there and played well, and didn’t make any mistakes.
Fortunately for the Giants, the 49ers made two costly mistakes. Both were committed by the 9ers return man, Kyle Williams. On the first a punt grazed his leg ever so slightly, and the Giants recovered the live ball. The Giants scored on that drive. His second fumble was during a punt return in overtime. The Giants recovered that ball as well and that set the Giants up with the game winning field goal. It certainly wasn’t a pretty game, but it showed the Giants had grit, and of course, it brought the Giants to the Super Bowl.

3 - Giants at Packers - 2007/2008 NFC Championship
Score: NYG 23 - GB 20
January 20, 2008

Coughlin should really stand near the heaters.

At a brutally cold Lambeau Field, with the game time temperature at negative one degree, and a wind chill of twenty nine below, it was the third coldest game in NFL history. Just ask Coach Tom Coughlin. His face looked like a pork chop with freezer burn. This was another hard fought game in the elements. It ended up going into overtime where Corey Webster intercepted a Brett Favre pass. This resulted in a forty-seven yard field goal by former Giants' kicker, and current MRSA patient, Lawrence Tynes, sending the Giants to the Super Bowl.

2 - Giants vs Patriots - Super Bowl XLVI
Score: NYG 21 - NE 17
February 5, 2012
This was the second Super Bowl matchup of the Giants and the Patriots in four years. This game wasn’t as exciting as their previous meeting. But there were enough exciting plays to make this game very interesting. Chase Blackburn boxing out a hobbled Gronk to intercept one of Brady’s passes. Brady barely overthrowing a wide open Welker. Manning’s incredible throw to Mario Manningham down the sideline. Bradshaw’s anti-climactic, deuce-dropping run into the end zone for the lead. The final second throw by Brady that almost landed in Gronk’s hands, and almost gave me a heart attack.
This game ended in a fourth quarter comeback, which shouldn’t surprise anybody, because that’s how so many games that season were played. Eli said during training camp that season that he was an “elite” quarterback. Well, that gosh darn quarterback proved it with his second Super Bowl MVP.

1 - Giants vs Patriots - Super Bowl XVII
Score: NYG 17 - NE 14
February 3, 2008
“One Giant Loss”
This will be the game that I’ll tell my grandkids about. This was the ultimate David and Goliath story. An undefeated Patriots team that spent the season ripping teams apart, played a team that clinched a wild card spot in week sixteen. They met on the final week of the season and the Giants put up one hell of a fight, but ultimately lost to the Patriots.

See, Tarantino's movies aren't that bloody..

To say this game was close is to say that Tarantino movies are only a bit bloody. A Patriots team that was running up the score on teams was held to only fourteen points. This was due to the pressure that the Giants front four was bringing. But it took more than that. This was the game that Eli fastened the belt on his big boy pants. That last drive of his demanded that he’d be taken seriously by the rest of the league. That one play in particular, you know, the escape from the grasp of a defensive tackle and chucking the ball to Tyree only to have him catch the ball with his helmet. It could be called luck, but do you know what luck is? When hard work meets opportunity.
This is arguably the best Super Bowl ever, and it’s no surprise why. It also shouldn’t be a surprise why this is the best Giants’ win, definitely in the past fifteen years, possibly in Giants history.