Tom Rock - Miracle Moments in New York Giants Football History: Best Plays, Games, and Records

Copyright 2019 by Tom Rock

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ISBN: 978-1-68358-294-6

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-68358-295-3

Printed in China

For Giants fans near and far, past and future.

CONTENTS

Al Bello / Staff, courtesy of Getty Images

Giants owner Wellington Mara presided over the team through some of the franchises bleakest times, but he also saw them achieve glory in two Super Bowls. (Newsday LLC/Kathy Kmonicek)

INTRODUCTION

It was a crisp fall day, one perfect for the playing or watching of footballthe kind of day Wellington Mara would have loved to spend walking laps around the practice field while his boys put the finishing touches on the game plan to beat that weeks opponent.

Only this crowd wasnt there to see a sporting event. They were there to mourn Wellington Mara.

The Giants owner, the son of the teams founder and the inaugural squads first ball boy, had died at age 89. St. Patricks Cathedral in Manhattan was packed with those who came to remember him on October 28, 2005.

Edward Cardinal Egan conducted the mass. John Mara, Wellingtons oldest son, delivered the eulogy. The pews were filled with a whos who of luminaries, not just from sport, but from New York society. Tiki Barber, one of Wellingtons favorite players, had led the 200506 team into the church. He looked around the cavernous building, looked at the Hall of Famers and owners, the past and present commissioners who had assembled, looked at the regality of the event.

It was unbelievable, Tiki told me. Anybody who was anybody was there. And that place is so magical and massive and ornate and beautiful. You kind of forget sometimes how big the Giants are, how important and meaningful they are to the city of New York. That was a reminder of the impact that the Giants have had on the city over the history of their existence.

It is easy to forget. We follow the Giants exploits on a daily basis. Back page to back page, victory to defeat, defeat to victory, embarrassment to ecstasy and back again. Its been that way for nearly a century, and it tends to blend together into a Big Blue blur.

But there are momentslike the one in St. Patricks Cathedral for Tiki Barberwhen the enormity of the Giants becomes clear. When they rise from the cacophony of noise that the city creates and remind everyone just how special the franchise is, the unique relationship it has with the area and its fans across the country and around the world. These are the Miracle Moments.

Ive tried to keep that quote from Tiki in mind while I worked on this book, which attempts to collect as many of those moments as possible and present them in a package that spans the history of the organization.

Some of them were easy to pick out. There are games that were decided by sneakers, games in which an aging quarterback threw seven touchdown passes, games in which iconic players were knocked cold and retired from the sport only to come back, and games where it felt like the whole region was salsa dancing. There were draft-day decisions that yielded titles, backroom conversations that brought in or replaced head coaches and general managers, and there was a $500 investment that started it all.

This book has been sourced via a diverse array of channels. I spoke with dozens of former players, coaches, and executives. I poured over newspaper and magazine articles that have been published over the decades and touched base with some of the men and women who wrote them and were witnesses to history. I watched numerous television interviews and documentaries, listened back to classic radio calls on a few of the most significant games in NFL history.

There are some chapters where I can tell you firsthand about what happened. Since I was immersed in the teams locker room and on its sideline since 2008 covering the Giants for Newsday , much of the information on more recent events comes from details I reported personally at the time they took place. There are other chapters where all the major characters are long deceased and Ive relied on previously published accounts to give them their voices. And then there are chapters like the one on Y. A. Tittles seven-touchdown game against the Redskins where I spoke with Joe Walton, the tight end who caught three of those passes including the final one, and I basically got the heck out of the way to let him tell the story.

Throughout the course of reporting for this book, I would often ask sources what they thought was the biggest Miracle Moment in Giants history. Most pointed to championships. Many said that David Tyrees helmet catch would never be topped. That, Carl Banks told me as succinctly as possible, thats the moment.

But others had more personal recollections. Things like studying the winds at Giants Stadium for a strategic advantage, seeing a lone captain walk to midfield in a Super Bowl like the marshal from an old western movie.

There are, undoubtedly, Miracle Moments that didnt make the cut here. And thats okay. Miracles dont have to be enjoyed by everyone to prove their worth. Sometimes they happen in private and are more special because of the fewer people who know about them. Personal miracles. You may remember watching the ball go wide right while sitting on your grandfathers knee or retweeting the video clip of the craziest one-handed catch anyone had ever seen. You may remember visiting a cemetery to share the news of a big win or making a trip as a kid to watch a training camp practice and gawk at the in-person immensity of the men who looked so small on the television screen. Maybe you recall the first time you bundled up and walked into Yankee Stadium to see a football game, the first time you made your way up the spiral ramp at Giants Stadium, or, God help you, the first time you sat in the Yale Bowl to watch the worst team in the NFL.

When I asked John Mara for his Miracle Moment, he, like more than a few others, said it would be hard to top winning Super Bowl XLII, a game against the previously unbeaten Patriots in which no one gave the Giants a chance to even compete. But then, after a quick pause, he was able to.

It was the last game of the 1981 season. The Giants beat the Cowboys at Giants Stadium, and they still needed the Jets to win the following day to make the playoffs for the first time since 1963 (which they did). Somehow, that wasnt as important as the feeling that for the first time in 17 years, they were pointed in the right direction.