Call it a Day

Feb 6, 2012

The close of another season was punctuated by something that was very familiar throughout the year and somewhat reminiscent of the meeting in 08 when these same two teams battled long and hard for the title. A tug-o-war for 60 minutes with the Eli led G-men pulling off another game and season ending victory, putting a stamp on the career’s of not only Manning but the man who may be the most forgotten person on the sideline, Tom Coughlin the coach. In fact this should go down as his greatest single season accomplishment.

All season the chatters been about comments made by certain individuals, the records set, like Drew Brees single season passing yardage which many thought could never be broken, this campaign saw Tom Brady pass Dan Marino’s mark and Matthew Stafford surpass five thousand also. There were rookie QB’s, Cam Newton breaking Peyton’s yardage record and Vick’s rushing TD total, or Andy Dalton leading Cincinnati and T.J. Yates helping the Texans to their first playoff appearance, who can forget what Rodgers did for all but two games as he pushed the bar in true quarterbacking excellence.

How bout that fella we affectionately call Mega-tron emerging as the one unstoppable force in the league at wide receiver, pure poetry in motion. Or the kid Victor Cruz wearing down backfields like none other before him claiming NY’s yardage record as a rookie. Many called this the year of the QB, but it could of very well been the year of the TE, Rob Gronkowski grabbing more TD’s, gaining more yards than any other TE in NFL history, his partner in crime Aaron Hernandez supplying the finesse to Gronks bulldozing ways, the two combining for nearly half of Brady’s yardage. Then there’s Jimmy Graham second only to that guy in New England in just about every category.

We can’t leave out the little guys who seem to defy all punishment by banging their bodies game in and game out carrying the ball with no regard to the fact that many of the monsters chasing almost double them in weight, three of the top five rushers, Maurice Jones-Drew, Ray Rice and LeSean McCoy all under five ten and barely over two hundred lbs, amazed us with their toughness by leading the league in total yards from scrimmage.

At the end of the day we seem to have bantered about all the players, certainly it’s deserved they are of course the ones who execute the game plan. I keep thinking we’ve forgotten what could be the most important factor, the men who come up with the game plan, call the plays, breakdown the defensive schemes and offensive juggernauts by making the necessary adjustments, along with the decisions us fans many times don’t agree with. Today we witnessed two of the best, definitely among the greats like Lombardi, Landry, Knoll, Walsh, Johnson and Parcells.

I know many will say I’ve lost my mind by putting Coughlin in that rare light. Just like Belichick he almost wills his players to give their all reaching heights that we all may not think their capable of. Who’d of thunk this team was championship caliber when at one point they lost four games in a row, evening their record at six and six, losing countless games to injuries by several key players,being under the scrutiny of the most critical media in the world and having the expectations of the the most raucous fan base of any sports city in this country. Coughlin rallied his troops to a level in the last six games of the year like those coaches I mentioned prior, and I’d goes as far to say he didn’t have the talent pool of those men.

So I say goodbye to what for me was an exceptional season even though my beloved Packers did not repeat. I thoroughly enjoyed what these eyes saw from the NFC, and the greatness exuded by a team most felt was mediocre at best!