Giants – Goliath becomes David
January 15, 2008 by James Edwards
Filed under Sports
NFL Football at its best. NFL Football at its craziest.
Check out the Packer uniform on Goliath. Special order.
Now my Biblical knowledge is not that great. Your intrepid author would be the first to admit to such, but if memory does serve me right and my wife would tell you it rarely does, wasn’t Goliath a Giant?
Wasn’t the Giant in the story of David and Goliath the odds on favorite? Weren’t all the peasants betting on the big guy?
How is it then that we find that the Giants are David in this case? The Giants are the small guy with the big heart. They are David.
The Giants are the Underdog. Not Underdog the cartoon fighting dog, but underdog as in don’t bet on them.
If you go to Yahoo and check the matchups between the New York Giants and the Green Bay Packers, you will find that the Giants are losers on Offense, Defense, Special Teams, Intangibles, Wild Card, Hot Dog Vending, Parking, Gum Chewing, etc.
And let’s not even get into comparing Brett Favre to Eli Manning.
Oddly, they lead in Coaching. That would be Giants Coach Tom Coughlin, recently left for dead early in the season. That would be Tom Coughlin over Mike McCarthy, who has won 18 out of his last 21 games and appears to be some kind of coaching genius that is up for a huge contract extension.
Somehow Coughlin the Tyrant, Eli Manning the Underappreciated, and Strahan the Strong, pulled the Giants out of the NFC East Division by winning the last 7 regular season road games. The East Division, otherwise known as the most difficult division in football with the Eagles, Skins, and Cowboys, and how did they come out of that?
Now before we get too carried away with all those road wins, some of them were easy, like Atlanta, Miami, Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Buffalo. That is 6 bottom feeders, well; the Eagles were kind of good.
After that it became interesting, knocking off Tampa Bay and Dallas in the playoffs. Guess that road mentality became a habit.
The Davids, err, Giants are displaying a little bit of walking wounded, how did we get there, persona.
In contrast to the other three conference finalists, the Giants’ path featured numerous twists and turns, including:
– An 0-2 start that would have been 0-3 if not for a goal-line stand in the final minute at Washington to preserve a 24-17 victory.
– Season-ending injuries to the team’s then-leading rusher (Derrick Ward), Pro Bowl tight end (Jeremy Shockey) and starting outside linebacker (Mathias Kiwanuka), plus rookie safety Craig Dahl (ACL), who had filled in when James Butler was injured.
– A 22-10 loss to Washington on Dec. 16 that temporarily denied the Giants a playoff berth and featured a dreadful 18-for-52 performance by quarterback Eli Manning.
– Injuries to center Shaun O’Hara and cornerback Sam Madison in a 38-35 loss to New England in the regular-season finale that forced both starters to miss the wild-card game against Tampa Bay the following week. source
But somehow, someway, they will find a way to get 11 guys out on the field and then Eli Manning will load up his sling, err, grab his football and be very careful about how he throws it.
Do the Giants stand a chance?
Of course, they don’t. But they never have, have they?
Then again, neither did David, no matter how big he was.
NFL Football Fan Question Are picking Packers or Davids, err, Giants?
Be sure to check out my companion blog at NBA Obsessed.
As always, any NFL Football related comments are welcome.
More blogs about football.














