Posted by ESPN.com's Matt Mosley
The folks at ESPN Stats & Analysis stayed up all night crunching numbers from Sunday's NFC divisional playoff game between the Giants and Eagles. After staring at this chart for at least 10 seconds, I've deduced that the Giants ran the ball well on first down, but struggled on every other down.
| Giants Rushing By Down | | | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | | Att | 17 | 10 | 2 | 3 | | Yards | 110 | 22 | 2 | 4 | | Avg | 6.5 | 2.2 | 1.0 | 1.3 | | 1st Downs | 5 | 1 | 0 | 1* | | * Came in first quarter | | |
After Fred Robbins had the interception early in the third quarter, I really thought the Giants were about to play smashmouth ball. Brandon Jacobs ran for 11- and 5-yard gains on the next two plays. Then Eli Manning threw two straight incomplete passes and the Giants had to settle for a 36-yard field goal.
For some strange reason, the Giants waited until they were down 20-11 before trying to sustain a running game. Normally a team would start throwing the ball to make up a two-score deficit. The Giants ran it a whopping 11 times in the fourth quarter.
That's what they should've been doing when they were against the wind in the first quarter. I'm still baffled by the Giants' game plan.
Mosley, an award-winning writer for The Dallas Morning News for seven years, joined ESPN.com in January 2007. Mosley, a Baylor graduate, writes columns, features and blogs for ESPN.com.
