Giants upset Packers in Ice Bowl II

By: Larry Fitzgerald
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
Originally posted 1/23/2008

 GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN —  I never thought I would see the day a team would be mentally tough enough to go into frigid Green Bay, Wisconsin, in late January before a record crowd of 72,740 and beat the Packers (13-4) on the frozen tundra at Lambeau Field.

 That team, the New York Giants (13-6) from the nation’s largest city, went into the NFL’s smallest city, Green Bay, and beat Brett Favre and the Packers 23-20 in overtime to earn a trip to Super Bowl XLII and a rematch with the New England Patriots. The Packers were 15-2 previously at home in the playoffs

 In a season in which Brett Favre broke the NFL’s all-time touchdown and most-yards-passing records and was selected Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year, it appeared Favre was going for it all, including another Super Bowl. That reality came to a bone-chilling end in the late hours of January 20 when Giants kicker Lawrence Tynes redeemed himself by kicking a 47-yard field goal to beat the Packers 23-20 in overtime.

 Favre extended his record consecutive-starting streak to 275 including playoffs and completed a 90-yard touchdown pass to Donald Driver in the second quarter to extend his record to 18 straight playoff games with at least one touchdown pass.  

 The game-winning kick was set up after Favre threw his second interception of the game to cornerback Corey Webster in overtime at the Packers 43-yard line. Tynes had missed two previous field-goal attempts in the fourth quarter, one of 43 yards and a 36-yard kick as time expired in regulation.

 Sunday’s game was one of the coldest in the annals of league history. Game-time temperature was -1 with a windchill factor of -17; it was the second-coldest game in Packers history, the coldest being the Ice Bowl in 1967 when the Packers beat Dallas 21-17 in -13-degree temperatures.

 This Giants team, despite the frigid temperatures, is the second-hottest team playing. They have now won an NFL-record 10 straight road games, including playoff wins at Tampa Bay, at Dallas, and at Green Bay. The Giants have now set up a rematch with the New England Patriots (18-0) in Super Bowl XLII on February 3 in Glendale, Arizona.

 For the second year in a row, a quarterback named Manning will have a chance to win the Super Bowl. Last year, Peyton Manning led Indianapolis to victory in Super Bowl XLI. The Giants’ Eli Manning out-played Favre, completing 21-40 passes for 254 yards and zero interceptions.

 Wide receiver Plaxico Burress had a monster game also, grabbing 11 passes for 154 yards. “We earned this trip to the Super Bowl,” said Burress. “He [Manning] was our general tonight. He was the captain of our ship, and me and Amani Toomer, we were the two big propellers on the side.”

 “We believed that we were going to win this game,” said Manning. “They were not moving the ball real well on our defense. They made a couple of big plays, but we believed we’d get the ball back. We moved it pretty good on them throughout the night. We had several field goals early on, but I was confident we were going to win the game.”

 Sunday’s overtime playoff game was the first in the NFL since 1998 when the Atlanta Falcons beat the Vikings 30-27 in overtime. Head Coach Tom Coughlin said, “The one thing we do is [that] our team looks forward. I have not had one issue, even with as modest as our winning has been. There has been no problem with handling a win here or there. We look forward; we don’t spend a lot of time on yesterday. We try to improve and go forward, and that has been a big plus for this team.” 

 Lynching Tiger Woods?

 We will not soon forget the huge controversy that raged last year during the NCAA Women’s Final Four Championship game between Tennessee and Rutgers, when CBS radio shock jock Don Imus, on his live national broadcast, jokingly called the predominantly Black Rutgers basketball team a bunch of “nappy-headed hoes.”

 The comment was a lightning rod that led to national protest and anger from outraged Blacks and women. Imus was fired from his program as corporate sponsors pulled their ads. As you may have heard by now, Imus is back on radio again, although not on CBS stations.

 It’s been two weeks now since Kelly Tilghman of the Golf Channel, the first female anchor on a live broadcast of the PGA Tour golf broadcast, jokingly commented during the Mercedes Benz Championship in a conversation in Maui with analyst Nick Faldo that young players who wanted to stop Tiger Wood’s dominance should “lynch Tiger Woods in a back alley.”

 Tiger Woods has said nothing. His agent Mark Steinberg, however, said, “It is a complete non-issue. Kelly and Tiger are friends. It might have been a poor choice of words, but there was absolutely no ill intent whatsoever.”

 Tilghman waited three days before she apologized publicly: “I used some poorly chosen words. I have known Tiger for 12 years, and I have apologized directly to him. I also apologize to our viewers who may have been offended.”

 As we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we are reminded of how far we have come, yet how far we still have to go. The Golf Channel finally suspended Tilghman for two weeks for her on-air comment on January 4.

 Last week Golfweek Magazine, packaging several stories on the controversy, used the image of a hangman’s noose on its cover of the January 19 issue. That choice has added fuel to the controversy. After PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem called the cover “outrageous and irresponsible and tabloid journalism,” Golfweek fired Editor Dave Seanor.

 Intelligent people know what lynching means, make no mistake about it — it is clearly defined in Webster’s Dictionary and Tilghman is no fool. It is also a symbol of racism of the worst possible kind in this country.

 It also is a painful reminder to Blacks that for more than a century many innocent Black people were lynched all across this country by groups of Whites. A statue in downtown Duluth, Minnesota, even commemorates the day that three Black men were lynched in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

 I’m certain that Tiger has given his friend Ms. Tilghman, a Duke University graduate, a pass, and it might save her career; however, she and Fuzzy Zoeller, as far as I’m concerned, are in the same league. Woods has been threatened before, and considering what he has accomplished, there are many sickos out there that don’t need to be reminded by Ms. Tilghman on public airwaves of acts of  our country’s shameful Confederate history.

That’s particularly the case since Woods is in pursuit of Jack Nicklaus’s all-time record of 18 Major Championships in golf.

 Larry Fitzgerald can be heard weekday mornings on KMOJ Radio 89.9 FM at 8:25 am, and biweekly he commentates on sports 7-8 pm on Almanac (TPT channel 2). He welcomes reader responses to lfitzgerald@spokesman-recorder.com, or visit www.Larry-Fitzgerald.com.