As a lifelong New York Giants fan, what they accomplished 8 days ago is only now really starting to sink in. I have watched the replays over and over again, downloaded the NFL Network game packages off iTunes (which are amazing, by the way). I am still trying to comprehend the whole thing.

Some thoughts (yes, I know it’s practically old news now):

• Either the referees really let the teams just go out and play or the Giants played one of their cleanest games in recent memory, or both. The Giants did not have one holding penalty, one false start, one offsides, or one personal foul (most important). This relative lack of penalties was huge in a close game like that. So many previous Giants teams killed themselves with penalties, especially dumb ones like personal fouls for hits out of bounds or shots to the QB’s head.

• All that said, I think the Giants defense got away with a couple of late hits on Brady as well as one or two shots to his head.

• The refs could have called the New England guy down on the Ahmad Bradshaw fumble recovery in the first half when Bradshaw somehow stole the ball back, and the Giants just got a lot of the breaks.

• The 4th and 1 play when Jacobs got the first one by an arm’s length has kind of been taken for granted. That was the whole game right there! If the Giants somehow botch that or if the Pats fill that hole, the game is over.

• the pass Manning threw to Boss and then the one he threw to Tyree for the TD to make it 10-7 were great. Brought back some Phil Simms memories.

• Almost every snap from O’Hara to Manning on the last drive was low, making the whole thing seem even more dramatic and desperate than it already was.

• New England had at least two and maybe three real chances at INT’s on the last drive and almost forced Manning to fumble once or twice. The Giants were truly living on the edge on that drive.

• right after the Manning to Tyree play, I turned to my wife and said something like “Whatever happens in this game, I can walk away now knowing the Giants gave everything they had and left nothing on the field”. I truly could have lived with a loss after that.

• Burress made an excellent catch on the winning TD. Manning put it where he had to, but Plaxico had to spin around, catch the ball, and keep two feet in.

• the 70 yard pass (in the air) that Brady threw to Moss with about 10 seconds left came SO close to being caught. It looked like Moss was too tired to really get his hands up high enough, which I guess is understandable. Who knows, maybe Moss even scores on that play. Imagine that?