Keyboard Quarterbacks

October 6, 1985: The Giants take a seemingly insurmountable 26-14 lead over the Cowboys on Lionel Manuel’s touchdown grab late in the third quarter, at which point I am summoned to bed. In the middle of the night, I wake up and call 976-1313 (sportsphone) only to find their place-kicking woes somehow cost them the game, 30-29. The entire next day at Great Hollow Middle School, I rest my head on my desk half-asleep and wondering, “How in the heck did they lose that game?”

November 18, 1985: Joe Theismann won’t forget this date. It was the day his playing career ended, as his lower leg was snapped in half on Lawrence Taylor’s sack. I won’t forget it, either. After watching Joe Morris run wild to give the Giants a 21-14 lead, my heart is snapped in half when I call sportsphone only to find out some blond backup named Jay Schroeder has led the Redskins to a 23-21 Monday night win.

December 1, 1985: A loss so tough to swallow I bang my head on the concrete wall in the back row of Section 314 and cry my eyes out. Then I write a poem based on Casey at the Bat as an assignment for Mr. Jaye’s sixth-grade reading class.

It really looked quite hopeless for the Big Blue fans that day The Browns led by two points with 30 seconds left to play And when the Giants failed to call time out, and coach Bill did the same It left four seconds on the clock — three points would win the game

Before this pressure on one kick the Giants led by 12
The defense gave up two touchdowns and put pressure on itself
But Eric Schubert had went 5-for-5, 16 points on his debut
Now it was all up to his foot, his leg and his small shoe

Schubert stepped up to the line, awaiting the snap of the ball
Jeff Rutledge would be holding it — a task that’s not so small
Many die-hards thought, ‘Would they drop to 8-5?
Please don’t let that happen — I would rather not be alive’

Oh, somewhere in the Meadowlands people win their bets
Oh, somewhere in this grassy land people like the Jets
And when it comes down to one last kick, of fear they are bereft
But there’s no joy for the Giants fans, for Schubert hooked it left

September 11, 1988: As if being a high school freshman wasn’t hard enough on the nerves, the Giants are about to improve to 2-0 when defensive backs Perry Williams and Terry Kinard collide along the sideline, allowing for Joe Montana and Jerry Rice to connect on a game-winning, 78-yard touchdown pass in the final minute.

November 20, 1988: This is the first in a series of heartbreaking losses to Philadelphia. On a rain-soaked field, the Giants rally to send the game into overtime, then block the Eagles’ game-winning field-goal try only to watch Jerome Brown scoop up the ball and ramble into the end zone for the sudden-death shocker. I immediately remove all the Giants posters from my bedroom wall.

December 18, 1988: The posters are back on the wall but I am not at home to see the Giants blow a chance at the division title. Instead, I am driving home from the Poconos with my dad listening to the game on the radio as the Giants rally to take a 21-20 lead. Then the usually sure-handed Phil McConkey muffs a punt, the Jets recover and Al Toon burns Herb Welch for the winning touchdown. The 49ers lie down on Sunday night against the Rams, who make the playoffs while nixing their most recent nemesis, the Giants, from the postseason. My friend Keith tears up the photos of Welch we had taken at training camp prior to the season.

October 8, 1989: One season after he bounces off Carl Banks and throws a dart to Keith Byers in the end zone, Rubber-band Randall Cunningham is back at it again... only this time he is the beneficiary of some home-field officiating. On fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line, Cunningham runs left and is stopped a good foot and a half short of the goal line. But the side judge, who was knocked on his backside near the pylon and had no view of the play, returns to his feet and calls it a touchdown. Two plays later, Simms is burned for an interception-return TD to seal the deal, and my little sister’s plastic playhouse is being kicked all over my backyard.

January 7, 1989: It’s the first playoff game I’ve ever attended. After a questionable pass interference call moves the Rams into Giants territory in overtime, Flipper Anderson catches the winning touchdown pass, runs through the tunnel and doesn’t return. He’d better never come back.

January 2, 1993: With the NFC East championship on the line in the final game of the regular season, Dan Reeves plays for the tie instead of the win late in the contest. Then, riding the separated shoulder of Emmitt Smith, the Cowboys go on to beat the host Giants, 16-13, in overtime. Because my mom was in the hospital with a heart condition at the time, it is the only heartbreaking Giants loss that I am ever able to keep in perspective.

December 27, 1997: A year earlier, in Dan Reeves’ final game as Big Blue’s head coach, the Giants’ season ends with a 23-22 loss in which Bill Parcells’ Patriots rally from a 22-0 deficit at Giants Stadium. The end to Jim Fassel’s rookie season as head coach is even worse. Over-The-Hill Randall Cunningham rallies the Vikings from a 19-3 halftime deficit to pull out an improbable 23-22 victory. Trailing by nine points with less than two minutes left, he fires a bomb down the left sideline to Jake Reed, and the usually sure-handed Chris Calloway can’t corral the ensuing onsides kick. Minnesota recovers, and the rest is history. I’ve only attended three Giants playoff games—the other was last year’s loss to Carolina—and they just so happen to be the only three playoff games the Giants have ever lost at home.

October 22, 2001: When beer bottles came flinging down at my car from an overpass of the Cross Bronx Expressway as I sat in absolute gridlock, I should have realized this was going to be a bad day. Donovan McNabb rolls to his right and connects with James Thrash in the waning moments for a 10-9, Monday night victory after the Giants had completely dominated the first 58 minutes of the game. The loss comes on the heels of a hard-fought, 15-14 setback at St. Louis and begins a string of eight losses over their final 12 games. It also signals the changing of the guard in the NFC East, as the visiting Eagles finally break their string of losses to the Giants.

January 5, 2002: An earthquake-sized collapse in San Francisco. Up 38-14 midway through the third quarter, the Giants completely melt down. As soon as Terrell Owens scores the first points of the comeback and adds the ensuing two-point conversion, you know it’s coming. Defensive coordinator Johnny Lynn doesn’t, so he leaves Jason Sehorn in man-to-man coverage to get burned by T.O. over and over again. And then there’s the botched field-goal attempt in the final seconds that the Giants would have been allowed to attempt again had the officials correctly called the Niners for pass interference on Matt Allen’s desperation heave downfield. The refs admitted their mistake afterwards, but they didn’t need to; Big Blew would have blown their next attempt, anyway.

September 15, 2003: Jim Fassel kept saying that last year was in the past, that the playoff loss to the 49ers was long forgotten. He lied. Instead of running the clock down far enough to run one final play, Fassel calls a timeout with 14 seconds left, and Matt Bryant drills what appears to be the winning field goal in the Giants’ comeback from a 29-14 second-half deficit. But then Fassel instructs Bryant to squib the ensuing kickoff toward the sideline, and it rolls out of bounds. One 25-yard Quincy Carter pass and one 52-yard Billy Cundiff field goal later, the game’s in overtime. Take a guess who wins it, there. Yeah, Big Tuna and Big ‘D’.

November 27, 2005: I’m working at Newsday now, and I’m not supposed to be a fan. Whatever. The more a 49ers fan/Giants hater in the office cheers on the Seahawks, the more I want to root for my team. He doesn’t really care who wins and loses this one, though. So as he giggles aloud about the Giants’ gaffes—three missed Jay Feely field goals, including a very makeable one to win it at the end of regulation—I can only pace the office, holding inside what I really want to say. I am downstairs in the lounge by the time Tiki Barber rips off another long run to put the Giants in field goal range for Feely to miss his second field-goal attempt of OT. I’m in the parking lot cooling off while Seattle lines up for the winning kick. And I’m back in my desk, tight-lipped but red in the face, slotting a Sunday night roundup 15 minutes later. I know the colleague enjoys this kind of choke-artistry. And he’ll keep on enjoying it. Because the Music City meltdown wasn’t the first time it happened to the Giants, and it won’t be the last.