Bits & Pieces

Blunders For The Ages

By Kim J. Harmon

If you are a New York Giants fan, roughly 35 and older, you have to feel pretty fortunate today.

Why? Well, you have seen your team win two Super Bowls when so many others haven’t. You have also seen the two of the worst (if not the two worst) blunders in the history of the National Football League.

I’m 44 old and I vividly remember that day – November 19, 1978 (the day before my birthday) – when the Giants were just about to secure a 17-12 win over the Philadelphia Eagles. But apparently offensive coordinator Bob Gibson called for a running play – one play after asking quarterback Joe Pisarcik to take a knee – and if you’re fan, then you remember Pisarcik turning to hand the ball off the Larry Csonka, the ball hitting the ground, and defensive end Herman Edwards scooping it and galloping into the end zone for the winning touchdown.

Gibson was fired the next day.

On Sunday, the Tennessee Titans, down 21-14 to the Giants, were facing fourth-and-10 from deep in their own territory when Giants rookie defensive end Mathias Kiwanuka had Titans’ quarterback Vince Young all wrapped up. The game was over – except, wait a minute! Kiwanuka let go of Young, who then scrambled for a first down.

A moment later, the Titans had scored the game-tying TD. And moments after that, after Eli Manning threw a bone-headed interception, the Titans won the game on a 49-yard field goal.

Some years ago I had come to a decision about watching the Giants. I had become so emotional about the games that it was affecting my health so I scaled back and while I still love my Giants and still get excited during games I remember to ease my tensions and to quickly slough it off.

But I don’t think I was as angry after a game as I was on Sunday, seeing it all unravel like that. Even when the Giants lost to the 49ers in the playoffs, losing that big lead in the second half and then not even getting the snap down on a potential game-winning field goal, I was able to shrug it off.

I’ll say this, though. I will be willing to give Kiwanuka a pass on that blunder. He was caught in a no-win situation right there; he has Young wrapped up and thought Young had gotten the pass off. Had Young really gotten the pass off and Kiwanuka drilled him, he probably would have gotten a 15-yard roughing the passer call and the drive would have continued anyway.

Being a Giants fan – really, that HAS to be one of the reasons I have high blood pressure.

I miss high school football games that are actually on Thanksgiving (though not so much this year, with all that rain) … in the old days (in the old days of rabbit ears), the Thanksgiving routine at my house was to wake up, grab some fresh-baked cookies, take a look at the turkey my mom threw in the oven about 4 am before heading back to bed, watching a little of the Macy’s parade, watching the Iona-New Rochelle high school game (never could understand why that was on teevee), eat, watch the Detroit Lions get beat, watch King Kong versus Godzilla (which was on every year) and then go outside for backyard football (tackle if the ground was soft; touch if it was not) … unless it’s the Giants on television, I already would rather play Madden 07 on Playstation than watch the average NFL game; so, what happens 10 or 15 years from now when the console hardware is so refined that the game is indistinguishable from the real thing? …what instant replay has taught us is that referees miss A LOT of calls … during the Knicks-Celtics game last week, the camera panned the stands and lit on a young boy and his sister who looked extremely bored and I’m thinking, hey, those seats cost your old man a couple hundred bucks, can’t you at least look happy? … Ebert and Roeper panned the new Denzel Washington movie, Déjà vu, but I have to say – I liked it …