Championship Sunday--Memories

[LennG]

Next week, is Championship Sunday probably the best day for football throughout the entire year. Yes, the SB gets all the attention, but these games are where champions are made. The SB is for average fans, Championship Sunday is for all the real football fans.

I was thinking about all the Giants Championship Sundays and the days leading up to it and just the feelings as we woke up, ready for that 'big' game.  In the modern Super Bowl era, the Giants have never lost a Championship game, and IMVHO, quite a few of these games rate as the best games EVER played by the Giants, even better than the Super Bowls that followed.

Let's look back

Jan 11, 1987--NY Giants vs Washington Redskins.  The Giants won 17-0 and at that time, was the greatest feeling ever after so many years of mediocrity, we are going to the SB.

Jan 20, 1991, NY Giants/ SF Niners--to me, this was the best football game I have ever watched by the Giants. Giants win 15-13.

Jan 14, 2001--NY Giants/Minn Vikings--This game was never in doubt and it might have been the easiest Championship win ever  41-0

Jan 20, 2008--NY Giants/ GB Packers--In the frigid tundra of GB we beat the much favored Packers 23-20- in OT, again, one of the best Giants victories ever. I can still see TC's frozen face and, finally, smile at the end.

Jan 22, 2012--NY Giants/SF Niners, again, in another game that was far more entertaining than the Super Bowl, in a tremendously hard-fought game, we prevail 20-17 again in OT.

Thanks, Giants for all these wonderful memories to keep us coming back for hopefully more.

[Ed Vette]

Good stuff Lenn. How would you rank the games and how would you rank the teams?

[kartanoman]

Next week, is Championship Sunday probably the best day for football throughout the entire year. Yes, the SB gets all the attention, but these games are where champions are made. The SB is for average fans, Championship Sunday is for all the real football fans.

I was thinking about all the Giants Championship Sundays and the days leading up to it and just the feelings as we woke up, ready for that 'big' game.  In the modern Super Bowl era, the Giants have never lost a Championship game, and IMVHO, quite a few of these games rate as the best games EVER played by the Giants, even better than the Super Bowls that followed.

Let's look back

Jan 11, 1987--NY Giants vs Washington Redskins.  The Giants won 17-0 and at that time, was the greatest feeling ever after so many years of mediocrity, we are going to the SB.

Jan 20, 1991, NY Giants/ SF Niners--to me, this was the best football game I have ever watched by the Giants. Giants win 15-13.

Jan 14, 2001--NY Giants/Minn Vikings--This game was never in doubt and it might have been the easiest Championship win ever  41-0

Jan 20, 2008--NY Giants/ GB Packers--In the frigid tundra of GB we beat the much favored Packers 23-20- in OT, again, one of the best Giants victories ever. I can still see TC's frozen face and, finally, smile at the end.

Jan 22, 2012--NY Giants/SF Niners, again, in another game that was far more entertaining than the Super Bowl, in a tremendously hard-fought game, we prevail 20-17 again in OT.

Thanks, Giants for all these wonderful memories to keep us coming back for hopefully more.

Thanks for starting this, Lenn. There should be nothing but wonderful memories for all of us, when discussing Giants' NFC Championship games they've played in, as they are 5-0 in this round of the playoffs in the Super Bowl era.

Every one of these games as its own unique story and precious memories surrounding it. I can talk all day about each game, which is burned vividly in my mind, but in short order this is a quick synopsis:

1986 NFC Championship: was a little disappointed it wasn't the Bears, as I wanted to see the Giants come full circle and have a retribution game with them coming into Giants Stadium, but I had a good feeling that they would beat the Redskins and they didn't disappoint. The wind and the flying paper everywhere is a spectacle that is a signature of the game which sent them to their very first Super Bowl ... just an amazing feeling for the first time saying the Giants are going to the Super Bowl; it was so odd to say it, that it almost didn't make sense after all the hard years that they, and we, had to go through to finally get there.

1990 NFC Championship: I was nervous about this one as all the talk was about the inevitable crowning of the 49ers as three-peat champions, best ever and Joe Montana was God, etc. Losing Phil Simms for the year, Rodney Hampton broke his ankle against the Bears the previous week and Jeff Hostetler was a backup QB who had never competed at this level before. I actually felt that the Hoss was going to give the Giants a running dimension which would help the offense as long as he could hit his receivers downfield. He not only did all of that, he showed toughness and courage in the same manner which Phil Simms had throughout his career and bounced back to make some of the biggest plays to give the Giants a chance to win it. But Leonard Marshall's notorious hit on Joe Montana still rings loud to this very day. Erik Howard's amazing play to cause Roger Craig to fumble, which LT recovered, set forth the game winning drive. Mark Bavaro, whose damaged knees had slowed him down, bravely got him open enough to make some big catches and advance the Giants into FG range. And then came Matt Bahr, from 42 yards out, who hit it just of reach of the 49ers' special teams players, and the ball drifted left until ... it crossed over the crossbar and the Giants pulled off the epic victory. As the players ran out onto the field and celebrated, Pat Summerall belted out the now famous line which underscores this unbelievable accomplishment, "THERE WILL BEEEEEE NOOO THREEEE_PEAT!!!!!!" Until Super Bowl XLII was in the books, this game went down as the greatest game in the long and storied history of the Football Giants and, in my opinion, Bill Parcells' greatest coaching effort which put him in the Hall of Fame. This win for the ages was so dramatic that it almost made the events in Super Bowl XXV, a week later, nearly anti-climactic.

2000 NFC Championship Game: the waving sea of white towels, the field of painted mud and the Giants jumping the Vikings before they knew what happened to them set the game in motion for a blowout and something we haven't been treated to since the 80s. The 41-0 conquest was a euphoric experience after a decade of ups and downs and changes from the end of the Parcells era.

2007 NFC Championship: the Tom Coughlin era was an era unto itself. It was an era built and defined by the head coach very much the way Parcells defined his football team in the 1980s. The Green Bay Packers and frozen Lambeau field presented a test of not only a good Packers team fighting to go to Glendale, but also a test of the elements. It was the Giants who looked very much at home in the cold in keeping step for step with the Packers. Perhaps no play better defined this than Antonio Pierce's now legendary open field tackle after getting by two Packer blockers. The drama intensified with every missed FG that Lawrence Tynes kicked which could have ended the game in regulation. But, in delicious irony, it was the long FG attempt, from 47 yards in the below zero weather, that he drilled in overtime, to send the Giants Arizona-bound to the Super Bowl.

2011 NFC Championship: deja vu? The manner in which the Giants were winning in the playoffs was eerily similar to the 2007 Championship run. But this championship matchup was with an old playoff rival, the 49ers. Another tight, closely played contest that went into overtime and was decided by the opponent turning the ball over to set up a Tynes winning FG. I remember being completely stunned and shaking my head in disbelief in how the Giants were almost repeating their championship run from four years prior. Sure enough, they didn't disappoint in the Super Bowl as Eli Manning tossed another last-minute big-time throw and the Giants scored the winning TD while holding on to the end in denying Tom Brady a second time. Just an amazing run which would cap Tom Coughlin's championship years with the Giants.

As bad as the times are these days, I can look back on these moments in time, and the four Super Bowl victories which followed them, and be grateful to have witnessed them all in my life after being born into Giant fandom during "The Wilderness Years." There are other teams in the NFL who have never even been in the modern era Super Bowl (e.g. Detroit), while others have but never have won it (e.g. the Bills). No matter your beef about the head coach, GM or even the owners, at various points in the history of the NFL, the Football Giants have stood tall amongst their peers as champions of it. For having those times to look back at, and remember the moments of what made them special to us, I can only be grateful. And if it takes a while before they return to glory again, I've learned at an early age to be patient enough to die hard with them so I'll be there with them to enjoy the spoils when the good times return.

Peace!

[LennG]

Thanks for starting this, Lenn. There should be nothing but wonderful memories for all of us, when discussing Giants' NFC Championship games they've played in, as they are 5-0 in this round of the playoffs in the Super Bowl era.

Every one of these games as its own unique story and precious memories surrounding it. I can talk all day about each game, which is burned vividly in my mind, but in short order this is a quick synopsis:

1986 NFC Championship: was a little disappointed it wasn't the Bears, as I wanted to see the Giants come full circle and have a retribution game with them coming into Giants Stadium, but I had a good feeling that they would beat the Redskins and they didn't disappoint. The wind and the flying paper everywhere is a spectacle that is a signature of the game which sent them to their very first Super Bowl ... just an amazing feeling for the first time saying the Giants are going to the Super Bowl; it was so odd to say it, that it almost didn't make sense after all the hard years that they, and we, had to go through to finally get there.

1990 NFC Championship: I was nervous about this one as all the talk was about the inevitable crowning of the 49ers as three-peat champions, best ever and Joe Montana was God, etc. Losing Phil Simms for the year, Rodney Hampton broke his ankle against the Bears the previous week and Jeff Hostetler was a backup QB who had never competed at this level before. I actually felt that the Hoss was going to give the Giants a running dimension which would help the offense as long as he could hit his receivers downfield. He not only did all of that, he showed toughness and courage in the same manner which Phil Simms had throughout his career and bounced back to make some of the biggest plays to give the Giants a chance to win it. But Leonard Marshall's notorious hit on Joe Montana still rings loud to this very day. Erik Howard's amazing play to cause Roger Craig to fumble, which LT recovered, set forth the game winning drive. Mark Bavaro, whose damaged knees had slowed him down, bravely got him open enough to make some big catches and advance the Giants into FG range. And then came Matt Bahr, from 42 yards out, who hit it just of reach of the 49ers' special teams players, and the ball drifted left until ... it crossed over the crossbar and the Giants pulled off the epic victory. As the players ran out onto the field and celebrated, Pat Summerall belted out the now famous line which underscores this unbelievable accomplishment, "THERE WILL BEEEEEE NOOO THREEEE_PEAT!!!!!!" Until Super Bowl XLII was in the books, this game went down as the greatest game in the long and storied history of the Football Giants and, in my opinion, Bill Parcells' greatest coaching effort which put him in the Hall of Fame. This win for the ages was so dramatic that it almost made the events in Super Bowl XXV, a week later, nearly anti-climactic.

2000 NFC Championship Game: the waving sea of white towels, the field of painted mud and the Giants jumping the Vikings before they knew what happened to them set the game in motion for a blowout and something we haven't been treated to since the 80s. The 41-0 conquest was a euphoric experience after a decade of ups and downs and changes from the end of the Parcells era.

2007 NFC Championship: the Tom Coughlin era was an era unto itself. It was an era built and defined by the head coach very much the way Parcells defined his football team in the 1980s. The Green Bay Packers and frozen Lambeau field presented a test of not only a good Packers team fighting to go to Glendale, but also a test of the elements. It was the Giants who looked very much at home in the cold in keeping step for step with the Packers. Perhaps no play better defined this than Antonio Pierce's now legendary open field tackle after getting by two Packer blockers. The drama intensified with every missed FG that Lawrence Tynes kicked which could have ended the game in regulation. But, in delicious irony, it was the long FG attempt, from 47 yards in the below zero weather, that he drilled in overtime, to send the Giants Arizona-bound to the Super Bowl.

2011 NFC Championship: deja vu? The manner in which the Giants were winning in the playoffs was eerily similar to the 2007 Championship run. But this championship matchup was with an old playoff rival, the 49ers. Another tight, closely played contest that went into overtime and was decided by the opponent turning the ball over to set up a Tynes winning FG. I remember being completely stunned and shaking my head in disbelief in how the Giants were almost repeating their championship run from four years prior. Sure enough, they didn't disappoint in the Super Bowl as Eli Manning tossed another last-minute big-time throw and the Giants scored the winning TD while holding on to the end in denying Tom Brady a second time. Just an amazing run which would cap Tom Coughlin's championship years with the Giants.

As bad as the times are these days, I can look back on these moments in time, and the four Super Bowl victories which followed them, and be grateful to have witnessed them all in my life after being born into Giant fandom during "The Wilderness Years." There are other teams in the NFL who have never even been in the modern era Super Bowl (e.g. Detroit), while others have but never have won it (e.g. the Bills). No matter your beef about the head coach, GM or even the owners, at various points in the history of the NFL, the Football Giants have stood tall amongst their peers as champions of it. For having those times to look back at, and remember the moments of what made them special to us, I can only be grateful. And if it takes a while before they return to glory again, I've learned at an early age to be patient enough to die hard with them so I'll be there with them to enjoy the spoils when the good times return.

Peace!

Great stuff Chris. Sure makes me want to relive those games once again.

[kartanoman]

Great stuff Chris. Sure makes me want to relive those games once again.

Me too, Lenn. That's why I decided to invest nearly half a decade to converting old VHS tapes of the games to DVDs so I can relive them on demand. To watch the first Conference Championship, and time warp from my current mid 50s to being a teenager again, to have Pat Summerall and John Madden come to life again, and listen to Brent Musberger and Jimmy the Greek with The NFL Today makes it all seem like yesterday; was it all really almost 40 years ago?

Peace!

[LennG]

Listening to Madden talk while he was watching Harry Carson skulk around for just the right moment to dunk Parcels with that Gatorade bucket.

Priceless