Week # 2 - September 19, 2011 - vs STL (Met-Life Stadium)

New York 30, St. Louis 27

Game winning TD with :42 left to play

What a great night for tailgating and celebrating one's 46th birthday.  63 degrees at game time for the Giants home opener vs the Rams at the newly christened Met-Life Stadium in the swamps of Jersey.  After a relaxing tailgate with Kim Rutherford, John Avitto & Howie Fortel we headed for our seats in section 313 to see the game.  In real life the G-men struggled a bit vs the Rams and eventually won by 12.  In this game they more than struggled vs the Rams and quite frankly looked like they were going to go down to defeat to an upstart Ram team.

With the game tied at 13-13 at the half both teams exchanged TD's in the 3rd quarter to keep the game tied after 3 quarters.  A Lawrence Tynes 43 yard field goal with a minute and forty three seconds gone in the fourth game New York a 3 point lead.  The Rams took a 4 point lead on a Cadillac Williams 7 yard TD run with 2:35 left in the game.  That run finished off a 7 play / 55 yard drive that took 4:20 off the clock.

With 2:35 left to go in the game New York face a 1st and 87 from their 13 yard line thanks to a clipping penalty on the kick return.  It was now time for Eli to show the fans, his teammates and the media what an Eli-te QB does in the 4th quarter.  On the first 2 plays Eli showed everyone that he's pretty adept at handing the ball off to Ahmad Bradshaw who had to nifty 7 yard runs to take us to the 2 minute warning.  An incomplete pass to Jake Ballard was followed up by a 20 yard reception by Mario Manningham to put the ball on the Giants 47 with 1:49 left to play.  Eli then hit Ballard on a long out for 17 yards to move to the Rams 36.  With the Ram defense protecting against the long pass to Cruz Eli dropped a screen pass to Bradshaw that went for 26 yards and a first down on the Rams 10 with 1:03 left.  Manning found Ballard once again for 9 yards to put the ball on the Ram 1 with 1:03 left.  A failed QB sneak pushed the Giants back to three and forced them to take their 2nd time out.  St. Louis loaded up for a run by Bradshaw, but Eli confounded them with a play action 3 yard toss to Manningham to put New York up for good with 42 ticks of the clock left to play.

After Tynes' XP and short kick off the Rams took over on their 38 with :33 seconds to go.  In 4 quick plays Sam Bradford drove them to the Giants 48 for one last hail mary attempt to Danario Alexander, which fell harmlessly to the Met Life Stadium field turf to end the game.  New York squeaks out a 3 point victory on the shoulders of superstar QB Eli Manning.  Special thanks to Mike Cribbs, who made the Rams play a lot tougher than they did in real life.  After giving me aggiata for 59 and a half minutes the G-men presented me with a great birth present victory.  The G-men head down to Philly next week for a battle of 2-0 undefeated NFC East rivals.

Click here to see a brief slideshow that includes:  scoring plays and game stats

REAL LIFE RESULTS:  NYG 28, STL 16 (Win) - click here to see box

REPLAY (2-0) vs REAL LIFE (1-1)

John A, Kimmy, Marc, Camille, Donny & Howie after victorious opener