piratesownninjas Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 T! T! stands for thanks! I'm not very big on using those things either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pig devilz Posted February 6, 2008 Share Posted February 6, 2008 sorry, i didnt read through the entire thread...maybe this was mentioned. what if the Patriots didnt play their starters much week 17?...didn't care about a perfect regular season? sat Brady for 2 or 3 qrts? the Giants would not have had a 'dress rehearsal' for the SB. even though the Giants claim they held back certain schemes,etc, so as not to tip their hand to their upcoming playoff opponents, they would not have had the 'practice' against the Patriots. which only aided them in figuring out how to beat them. just an interesting twist to OP's question. that last game of the season always stuck out for me on schedule. no matter what the Giants record was, and they were all over the place during parts of the season, i knew they were a tough, physical team. the Patriots would be coming off two 'easy' teams in the Jets and Dolphins, and would have to play the Giants on the road on a saturday night...it always gave me an uneasy feeling. yeh they won, but at what expense? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theprofessor Posted February 6, 2008 Share Posted February 6, 2008 There was no shortage of people amazed that he played to win a "meaningless game". Seems like it may have meant more than you know. I loved the idea and thought they really had nothing to lose. It's not like they'd been playing so great up til then that they were expected to do anything in January. Nearly beating the Pats in week 17 showed his team that they could beat these guys. If they could beat the Pats, why not all the teams standing in the way? That should really be a lesson to coaches who mail in the last weeks of the season afraid of injuries. People act as if it's a foregone conclusion that your best players are going to get hurt if you play them. They also forget how much of a mental and emotional aspect there is to the game... What's getting overlooked here is that by playing their starters and playing to "win" the Giants forced the Patriots to show all their cards in this game and allowed them to be better prepared for the Super Bowl contest. Had the Giamts rested their starters in that final game the Patriots would have blown them out and not given Spagnola the opportunity to prepare for all their different looks and schemes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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