By TOM PEDULLA
Published: October 15, 2012
Coach Tom Coughlin
hammered his Giants players throughout the preseason with the slogan
“Build the Bridge,” urging them to continue to display the qualities
that allowed them to sweep their final six games last season and emerge
as Super Bowl champions.
They quickly realized how difficult it can be to turn those words into
action when they became the first defending champions in 13 years to
drop their opener — a 24-17 defeat to the visiting Dallas Cowboys. They
needed 25 fourth-quarter points to rally past Tampa Bay, 41-34, in their
second game and appeared to be regaining their form with a 36-7 victory
at the Panthers.
A 19-17 loss at Philadelphia followed, in which the Eagles ran around
and through the Giants for 191 yards. Next was a come-from-behind 41-27
win against the rebuilding Cleveland Browns, in which the Giants spotted
the visitors 14 points.
Then came a 26-3 domination of the San Francisco 49ers in a rematch of
last season’s N.F.C. championship game that turned into a shocking
mismatch and delivered an important reminder: it takes time to build a
bridge.
“We feel that once we put everything together — offense, defense and
special teams — that’s something that is going to be tough for teams to
beat us,” linebacker Michael Boley said Monday during a conference call.
“We kind of put everything together, and we showed that we’re a team to
be reckoned with.”
Coughlin, also speaking by conference call, could not have been prouder
when he said, “In a very big conference game, we were able to go to San
Francisco and come up with a win against a very, very good 49er team.”
The Giants said before they ventured to San Francisco that a repeat of
their 20-17 nail-biter in that title game depended on their ability to
win the physical confrontations up front by running successfully while
stopping a ground game that had averaged a league-leading 195.8 yards a
game. They won big on both counts.
Ahmad Bradshaw dashed and darted his way for 116 yards and a touchdown
on 27 carries, becoming the only running back to reach 100 yards in the
49ers’ last 23 home games. Combined with his 200-yard eruption the
previous week, Bradshaw, a six-year veteran, has put up consecutive
100-yard efforts for the second time in his career.
The 49ers had amassed 311 yards on the ground and 310 passing yards in a
45-3 thrashing of Buffalo the previous week, distinguished themselves
as the only team in N.F.L. history to surpass 300 yards running and
throwing in the same game. The Giants limited the 49ers to 80 yards
rushing.
“We’ve been up and down this year as a team,” Boley said. “So there were
a lot of doubts as far as were we going to be able to stop the run or
if we were going to be able to run the ball. So I think we made a
statement that this is a physical team.”
With the 49ers forced to go to the air, Alex Smith and Colin Kaepernick were sacked six times.
The fierce pass rush that had keyed the Giants’ Super Bowl run had been
relatively meek, with eight sacks through the first five games.
“We played outstanding defense,” Coughlin said. “Let’s face it, we
played a team that had been on fire. And we played very well.”
He noted that the Giants’ special teams did well in controlling San
Francisco’s dangerous return game, and he described David Wilson’s
66-yard runback of the second-half kickoff as a “momentum-changing
play.”
Although the Giants improved to 4-2, they are 0-2 in the East as they
turn their attention to Sunday’s home game against the Washington
Redskins (3-3), who swept both meetings last season. “We need to have
consistency,” Coughlin said. “We need to be able to play very well in a
division game.”
EXTRA POINTS
Defensive tackle Chris Canty, who missed the first six games this season
when he was placed on the physically unable to perform list after
off-season knee surgery, is cleared to practice. Tom Coughlin said
Monday that tight end Travis Beckum, also recovering from off-season
knee surgery, was not cleared.
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