PACK YOUR BAGS
Playing for pride, Giants beat Skins to roll into playoffs Off to Frozen Tundra to face Pack
Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, who had two interceptions, celebrates with Landon Collins during the Giants’ 19-10 win over the Redskins, knocking Washington out of the playoff hunt. Big Blue will take on the red-hot Packers, who claimed the NFC North title by beating the Lions.
LANDOVER, Md. — Eli Manning did not say he had that feeling, but he has a certain feeling he has felt before and the Giants are hoping their franchise quarterback is onto something.
“Proud of this team,’’ Manning said. “I think there’s a uniqueness and something special about this squad of guys. We are finding ways to win games. Not perfect, it could be prettier at times but we are winning games. That is a good quality to have.’’
The Giants have a quality that allows them to keep playing at a time when the NFL truly gets down and dirty. They closed out a successful and eye-opening regular season Sunday with a 19-10 victory over the Redskins at FedEx Fi el d, eliminating Washington from the playoffs and allowing the Giants to head into the postseason feeling pretty darn good about themselves.
“I like this football team,’’ first-year head coach Ben McAdoo said. “I think we have talented men of integrity in the locker room and that’s where it starts and that’s where it ends.’’
There is no end in sight for the Giants (11-5), who will end a fiveyear playoff drought this weekend in Green Bay to face the redhot Packers, who have won six consecutive games.
This is the third time since 2007 the Giants will face the Packers in a playoff game at hallowed Lambeau Field. The Giants are 2-0 in those games, but they were beaten by the Packers at Lambeau 23-16 on Oct. 9.
“Obviously Green Bay beating us, I think we did some good things at the very end of that game that gave us confidence to go out there and play those guys,’’ guard Justin Pugh said.
Said linebacker Keenan Robinson: “You got a guy like [Aaron] Rodgers, when the playoffs come around, he really turns it on.’’
The Giants had nothing to play for Sunday, already locked into the No. 5 seed, yet sent an NFC East rival packing with another pulverizing defensive p e rfo r mance featuring two interceptions of Kirk Cousins by Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, utter disdain for the Redskins ground game and four sacks coming from all sorts of angles. Once again, the defensive bludgeoning made up for an incomplete offensive showing. The Giants ran for a season-high 161 yards — rookie Paul Perkins (102 yards) became the first Giants player this season to hit the cen- tury mark — but scored just 13 points on offense. That is not going to cut it in the playoffs. They got their final touchdown when cornerback Trevin Wade scooped up a desperation backwards lateral by Jordan Reed and ran 11 yards with the fumble recovery into the end zone with no time remaining.
“I mean obviously we want to pick it up,’’ Manning said.
The Giants ended the season scoring 14, 10, 17, 19 and 19 points in their final five games.
The game had all the meaning in the world for the Redskins, who were in a win-and-in scenario as far as their playoff fate. They lost and are out, eliminated by an NFC East rival that did not mind at all being the team to send the Skins packing. The Redskins fell behind 10-0 at half- time and the Giants looked like the team that needed to win to stay alive.
“I think they made us flat,’’ Redskins coach Jay Gruden said. “Giants made us flat. Terrible start.’’
Fittingly, the Giants sealed the game with a defensive gem, with Rodgers-Cromartie intercepting Cousins with 1:12 remaining. Cousins was looking for Pierre Garcon but instead found DRC, a turnover that killed the Redskins’ season.
True to his word, McAdoo played his starters and never really made any mass substitutions, though backups were sprinkled in liberally in the second half. McAdoo was most cautious with Odell Beckham Jr., who did not play much in the second half and f inished with five catches for 44 yards. Beckham kept his poise even though his nemesis, cornerback Josh Norman, tried to bait him and was called for two penalties against Beckham: an unnecessary roughness call in the second quarter and an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in the third quarter.
“I personally feel like it’s been dead for a long time, I feel like I put that to bed,’’ Beckham said of his history with Norman. “If I sneeze wrong it might be a problem so I felt like today I just did a good job of just coming out and playing football and trusting coach and his decisions.’’
McAdoo said limiting Beckham’s snaps in the second half had nothing to do with saving Beckham from Norman. “It had zero factor,’’ McAdoo said. “At some point and time in the game I was going to take him out of the game.’’
The Giants led 10-0 at halftime and played it conservatively on offense in the second half. The Redskins tied the game on Cousins’ 1-yard touchdown pass to tight end Jordan Reed with 8:13 remaining.
Wi t h the crowd finally engaged and the intensity rising, the Giants found the winning points on an eight-play, 58-yard drive fueled almost entirely by Manning’s best throw of the game: an all-in-the-air 44-yarder to seldom-used Tavarres King, who went out of bounds on t he Washington 25 -yard line. That set up Robbie Gould’s 40-yards f ield goal with 2:12 remaining.
“Ten wins are good but 11 is awesome,’’ linebacker Jonathan Casillas said. “I don’t remember the last time the Giants did that. It’s a good way to finish the regular season and will give us some momentum moving into the playoffs.’’