January 9, 2009
GIANTS 29, 49ERS 17
Giants win ugly over 49ers
Brandon Jacobs knows it wasn't good enough.
Oh, it was fine for yesterday to slip past the 49ers with a 29-17 win. But opponents like the Niners who don't make teams pay for mistakes and who lavish the Giants with miscues of their own, well, they're pretty much a thing of the past for the Giants.
They are 5-1 after seven weeks and have yet to face a team with a winning record. That changes next week when the defending Super Bowl champions travel to Pittsburgh, then play the Cowboys and Eagles.
For almost all purposes, the Giants' 2008 season begins Sunday.
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"There are teams that are going to be gunning for us and they know where we made those mistakes; they know what hurts us, they know when and where and how, and they're going to do just that," Jacobs said after his two touchdown runs helped the Giants rebound from their first loss of the season. "We have to clean it up because coming up this weekend, we can't win ugly against Pittsburgh."
Less than a week after losing an ugly game in Cleveland, the Giants won one that was almost as unsightly.
Certainly it was on offense, where they had their lowest production of yardage (273) since they were bogged down in London against the Dolphins last season, a game they also found a way to win. But despite lackluster stats and some sloppy (as well as questionable, in one case) penalties, they avoided turnovers and managed enough to earn the victory.
"It's always good to get a win," Eli Manning said. "You take every one of them."
If anyone took this one, it was the Giants' defense, which forced three turnovers by the butterfingered Niners and sacked J.T. O'Sullivan six times. They also bottled up Frank Gore, who entered the game as the NFL's fourth-leading rusher but was held to 11 yards on 11 carries. O'Sullivan, who scrambled for 27 yards, had a better game on the ground than Gore.
"He was our main focus," linebacker Danny Clark said of Gore, "and we tried to make sure we corraled him as much as possible."
Gore may have been their specific target, but there was a big picture too.
"It was an objective of ours to get that bad taste out of our mouths," added Clark, the only regular starting linebacker who started yesterday. "We did not play well defensively at all [in Cleveland] and we played with a chip on our shoulder all game."
That included forcing a three-and-out on San Francisco's first possession with a tackle for a loss by Chase Blackburn, who replaced Antonio Pierce (inactive, quadriceps) and a sack by backup defensive end Dave Tollefson.
The offense looked sharp on its four-play, 54-yard drive to take a 7-0 lead on Jacobs' 26-yard run through the right side of the line, following a block from guard Chris Snee on linebacker Patrick Willis.
After allowing a field goal, the Giants went ahead 14-3 on Jacobs' second touchdown, a 2-yard run. The Niners closed to 14-10 with 11:25 remaining in the second quarter when Josh Morgan beat Aaron Ross on a 30-yard touchdown pass.
The score remained there until Michael Johnson plucked the first of his two interceptions, setting up first-and-goal at the 9 that turned into a field goal and a 17-10 lead. Johnson's interception in the end zone with 15 seconds remaining kept the score there at halftime.
The Giants capitalized on another turnover - this one a botched handoff between O'Sullivan and Gore that was recovered by Mathias Kiwanuka - to pull ahead 24-10 on Manning's 6-yard touchdown pass to Plaxico Burress. They were ready to put the game away later in the third, but John Carney's 35-yard field-goal attempt was blocked by Manny Lawson and returned 74 yards by Nate Clements to make it 24-17 instead of 27-10.
But Carney came back to kick a 48-yarder early in the fourth and the Giants recorded a safety with 4:57 left to cap the scoring. Justin Tuck sacked O'Sullivan and knocked the ball from his hands on that play. Bryan Kehl had a chance to recover it in the end zone, but Morgan kicked it through the end zone to give the Giants a two-pointer.
"Cleveland was definitely a wake-up call," defensive tackle Barry Cofield said. "We took it. Hopefully, we won't need another one again."
The defense seemed to take that call. It may be going straight to voice mail for the offense.
Mixx it!
Copyright © 2009, Newsday Inc.
