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by Digger

Super Bowl Champion New York Giants (12-3) ran over Carolina Sunday night to earn honors of becoming the 2008 NFC Regular Season Champion and #1 Playoff seed. Sunday night's football game might have been the greatest game of the season and it took an extra session (overtime) before a winner was crowned.

New York trailed early 21-10 after DeAngelo William's 2nd of 4 touchdowns. Momentum seemed all in favor of Carolina especially after the Giants were stopped on a 3rd and 1 thanks to a questionable play call. Somehow, instead of handing the ball to one of the Giants THREE featured running backs... they went with a handoff to fullback Hedgecock who hadn't run the ball in his entire Giants career. He was easily stuffed and the Giants punted. The way Carolina was gobbling up the Giants defense, I thought if the Panthers scored another quick touchdown then it would be near lights out for the Giants.

The game was won by the Giants offensive line tonight. It was great watching the Giants rush for 301 yards. How many times did Manning hand off to either Ward (215 yards) or Jacobs (87 yards, 3 td) while in shotgun formation? They burned Carolina time and time again. In overtime, it was shotgun runs by Ward to set up a 1 yard blast into the end zone by Jacobs.

Manning was sharp most of the game but had a few rough moments. The game plan this week was executed much better than in weeks past. The game in Dallas was an embarrassing loss. Winning the top NFC Playoff seed tonight makes up for a few blips on the radar.

As for the other New York team...........

The New York Jets (9-6) lost for the 3rd time in 4 games. An utterly pathetic performance with the season hanging in the balance. Head Coach Eric Mangini and Offensive Coordinator Brian Schottenheim will be listening to fans, newspapers and New York talk radio calling for their heads this week. Playcalling has wrecked the Jets once promising season and today was no different. There was no blocking scheme to protect Favre on passing plays. Jets abandoned what should have been an effective running attack against a terrible defense. Late in the game while trailing 10-3 Mangini decided against a 50 yard field goal after a delay of game penalty erased a successful attempt from 45 yards. Instead, Mangini chose to punt. Late in the ball game, with all timeouts remaining, Mangini went for it on 4th down from deep within Seattle territory on 4th and 4. Play failed... setting up Seattle for an easy put the game out of reach field goal a few moments later. 13-3.. Jets lose.

Mangini will hear it loud and clear this week. Terrible clock management. Horrible pass protection for Favre. Poor playcalling all the way around including a failure to improvise for snow conditions. Defense only surrendered one touchdown but they were largely ineffective. This was a 9-3 team talking of Super Bowl dreams until falling apart. Losing in San Francisco and Seattle could prove to be fatal. Jets take on former QB Chad Pennington next weekend as Miami (10-5) comes to town. What a story Pennington has been leading a Dolphins team which suffered thru a 1-15 season only a year ago. Now, they're one victory away from winning the AFC East. Great opportunity for Pennington to stick it to his former team.

Giants are back to playing like champions. Jets have been playing like......