Chapter 1-Getting Started

The New York Giants football organization goes way back to 1925. That’s the year that Tim Mara founded this incredible football team. In fact, the team has always been family owned.

On October 4, 1925, the New York Giants played their first game, an away game, against the New Britain team. In front of 10000, the Giants won 26-0. They finished with an 8-4 record.

In their third season, the Giants finished out 11-1-1. A matter of years later in 1965, the Giants had a league-worst record 1-12-1, giving up more than 500 points on defense.

Chapter 2-Bill Parcells Era
Bill Parcells is one of the most successful coaches in his time. In his debut season, his New York Giants football team went 3-12-1. The next year, the Giants made the playoffs as a wildcard team. The next year, they got better improving their record to 10-6. In 1986, the very next year, the Giants had an unbelievable season.

It was opening day, September 8, 1986. The Giants took on their NFC East rival Dallas Cowboys. In front of 59804 people, the Cowboys defeated the Giants. That was a disappointing start to a spectacular season. After a 5 game winning streak, outscoring their opponents 102-42 during that stretch, the Giants lost in Seattle 17-12. Little did they know that would be their final loss of the season, including postseason. After the loss to Seattle, the Giants outscored their opponents 205-146.

The playoffs were underway. The Giants had home field advantage in the playoffs. It was time to face San Francisco under Hall Of Famers Joe Montana and Jerry Rice. The Giants defense did a superb job of keeping the 49er’s out of the end zone, giving them a 49-3 whopping. The next week was the NFC championship. The winner would goto Super Bowl XXI. They played NFC rival Washington Redskins. Washington couldn’t get anything done, losing 17-0. That means the Giants had a 66-3 playoff run in their first 2 games!

Super Sunday, 1987. The Giants faced AFC champions Denver Broncos under John Elway, a young quarterback out of Stanford. At halftime the Giants were disappointed at their first half performance, trailing 10-9. Parcells encouraged them to keep balling hard, that it’s only a 1 point game and they’re still in this. The Giants outscored the Broncos the second half 30-10, making it the highest scored half in Super Bowl history.

The Giants didn’t make the playoffs for two straight seasons after that. In 1989, they had a 12-4 record and lost to the LA Rams 19-13 in OT.

Chapter 3-1990
The Giants started out 10-0 in 1990, tied with San Francisco for best record in the NFL. Both teams lost the next week and the week after that they played each other. In only one quarter of scoring in the whole game, the Giants lost 7-3.After beating the Vikings, it was time to face the best offense in the league, Buffalo Bills. The Giants lost all-star QB Phil Simms for the season with a broken foot and was replaced by veteran backup Jeff Hostetler. Losing to the Bills 17-13 in the regular season, the Giants faced them again in Super Bowl XXV.

After blowing out Chicago 31-3, they went to San Francisco. They had lost to them earlier in the season and a comeback 15-13 victory in the NFC Championship to send them to their second Super Bowl in 5 years.

There were eight seconds left. The Bills were trying a long field goal with a struggling field goal kicker. The Giants were up 20-19. “Snap. Spot. In the air it’s got the distance it is NO GOOD!!” The Giants were world champions for the second time in 5 years, this time on a miracle and with their backup quarterback.

Chapter 4-The 21st Century

In the 2000-2001 season, the Giants were led by QB Kerry Collins and rookie WR Ron Dixon out of Lambuth. The only Giants scoring play was a 97 yard kickoff return by Dixon while getting blown out to the outstanding Baltimore Ravens defense 34-7.

Collins was released in 2004 because they picked up former MVP Kurt Warner from St Louis and drafted Philip Rivers (traded to the San Diego Chargers for Eli Manning). Warner was afterwards acquired by Arizona.
2007. A crazy year in the NFL. The New England Patriots were the first and only team to finish a record 16-0 (won a total of 20 straight games, 2 preseason, 16 regular season, 2 postseason). They would make it all the way to the Super Bowl to visit the greatly coached New York Giants. I remember that game like it was finished 10 minutes ago, not 6 years. The only first quarter score was a Lawrence Tynes field goal to make it 3-0. The first play of the second quarter was a Laurence Maroney touchdown to make the score 7-3, which was the score at the end of the 3rd quarter. In the fourth, the Giants unheard of WR David Tyree just went ham. He caught for a touchdown and a miracle play made by Manning and Tyree. Manning was about to get sacked on a linebacker blitz by Adalius Thomas on 3rd & 5 when he fought out of it and launched it to Tyree who jumped up and snatched it on the top of his helmet with one hand while Rodney Harrison was trying to knock it down. It was named the best Super Bowl play of all-time, which led to the game winning touchdown by Plaxico Burress just a few short plays later. Eli Manning earned MVP.

The Giants won another Super Bowl four years later against the Patriots, 21-17. Eli Manning was yet again the MVP.

Chapter 5-My Giants experiences
On October 9, 2011, the Giants played the Seattle Seahawks on my birthday. I sat in the end zone with front row seats. The sight was amazing on a hot, sunny day with thousands and thousands of fans surrounding green field. The Giants started out struggling and got boosted with Victor Cruz’s circus juggling one-handed catch. He did his celebratory salsa right in front of me. It was an amazing game, however the Giants lost 36-25. However, I was still in the background on Eli Manning’s 2012 Score Panini football card on his Super Bowl MVP season. That’s going to be something I’m going to tell my grandkids about.

The next year on August 10, 2012, the Giants played in Jacksonville. I again sat in the North end zone, front row. Victor Cruz waved to me and my friend Kyle, who I went to the game with. If it wasn’t for the net catching the balls that were kicked for a field goal from going into the stands, I would have alot of them right now. The Giants seized an early 24-7 lead, but the very rowdy Jacksonville crowd helped them to a 32-31 comeback victory.

Ok, the Giants are 0-2 when I go see them. But ok, I’ll have to see them win sometime.