Wing and a miss! Punter, special
GREEN BAY — Five years after an Eli Manning Hail Mary touchdown pass to Hakeem Nicks closed the first half of a Giants’ playoff win at Lambeau Field with a bang, the Giants fell victim to a cruel twist of karmic symmetry.
In the same situation, in the same end zone, in the same stadium but with the teams’ roles reversed, Aaron Rodgers connected with Randall Cobb on a Hail Mary in Sunday’s wildcard game to put the Packers up 14-6 on the last play of the half. Rodgers and Co. went off in the second half to win, 38-13.
Rodgers’ 42-yard touchdown pass improbably fell to Cobb in the back, middle-left side of the end zone with Giants defensive backs Landon Collins, Leon Hall and Eli Apple closest in coverage. Apple described the play as “heartbreaking.”
It was a major blow to the Giants, just as Nicks’ was to the Packers five years ago. Big Blue’s defense Sunday had largely stopped Rodgers in the first half until the Green Bay QB floated the ball perfectly into the hands of Cobb.
“I think they got the momentum back right at the end of the half with the Hail Mary,” Jonathan Casillas said. “That kind of was it for them... Like before they go into the half, no matter what we did to them, they were still up.”
Safety Andrew Adams, who was benched in favor of Hall after missing tackles last week in Washington, concurred with Casillas’ assessment that the momentum switched.
“We were playing great, and then that one play happened and from there it kind of went downhill,” Adams said.
Apple was one of the closest players to Cobb when the ball, which Rodgers threw sky-high, landed in the receiver’s hands.
“I don’t really know where he came from (but) as a collective unit, yeah, we didn’t do a good job on that at all,” he said.
The similarities to the Manning-to-Nicks Hail Mary from five years ago are striking.
In the 2011 NFL playoffs, on their way to winning Super Bowl XLVI, the Giants beat the Packers, 37-20, at Lambeau in the divisional round on Jan. 15, 2012. Big Blue was ahead 13-10 just before halftime when Nicks leaped to snag a 37-yard Hail Mary from Manning, a touchdown that turned the game’s tide.
Giants guard Justin Pugh said he was aware of the similarities with Nicks’ touchdown but said he had no thoughts on it.
The Packers were particularly fortunate Sunday because they almost cost themselves even getting a shot at a last second heave toward the end zone. On the play before the Hail Mary, Rodgers unwisely threw to tight end Jared Cook over the middle with no timeouts. A catch almost certainly would have ended the half. Instead, linebacker Keenan Robinson broke the pass up, which stopped the clock, giving Rodgers one more shot at the end zone. And boy, did he make it count. This is hardly the first time that Rodgers has proven to be dangerous even in desperate Hail Mary situations. Last year the Packers’ quarterback improbably connected on two Hail Mary’s — one in the regular season against the Lions and another in the playoffs against the Cardinals to force the game into overtime, though the Packers eventually lost that game.
Ben McAdoo’s favorite adjective this year to describe Brad Wing has been that the punter is a “weapon.” But on Sunday in Big Blue’s 38-13 wild card loss to the Packers, the only team Wing — and the entire special teams unit — hurt was the Giants. Wing averaged just 39 yards on his eight punts.
“Field position’s always important and I feel like I really let us down today,” Wing said. “So it’s tough. I take my job very seriously and today I did not execute at all. And it’s very disappointing because this is the only thing I’ll remember for the whole offseason.”
Wing said he did not think the frigid temperatures were much of a factor in his rough day.
“I just hit three bad punts. It was just little technical things,” he said. “Ball drop was just a little inside. I don’t think it was the weather or anything like that. It was just bad punts. There’s no excuse for ’em. It’s me, I own ’em.”
“It’s just disappointing to play all year to get to this point and then for myself to go out there and have a performance like that, it’s disappointing,” the punter added. “It’s gonna be a long offseason. But it will be a good one, promise you that.” He wasn’t the only special teams problem. Bobby Rainey fielded one kick return at the 3-yard line near the sideline and then couldn’t stop himself from going out of bounds. Dwayne Harris fielded several punts inside the 10-yard line. And Kelvin Sheppard touched the ball when the Packers were punting to the Giants, though Sheppard recovered the fumble.