Vacchiano: Nobody's doubting the Giants now

Sitting in the stands, just another fan now, Ernie Accorsi could feel the weight of the moment the world was about to see. Moreso than anyone else, he was the man responsible for making Eli Manning a Giant. For years, as Manning struggled, sometimes it seemed he was the only one who believed.
 
Then with 2:39 left in Super Bowl XLII, Manning jogged out onto the field and stepped into the Giants’ huddle, trailing 14-10 to the unbeaten New England Patriots. Down on the field, Manning called the play, looked around at his teammates and said “Let’s go win this thing. Who’s with me?”
 
Up in the stands, Accorsi was much more nervous than the ice-veined quarterback whom he acquired from San Diego in a blockbuster trade four years earlier. Accorsi, the former Giants GM, knew this was the moment he had in mind when he made that deal. Now, sitting next to his son, all he could do was take a deep breath and watch.
 
“You know what?” Accorsi said to his son. “If he’s what we thought he was going to be, he’s got to do it now.”
 
What happened next has already become the stuff of legends — a drive so beautiful it was enough to blunt the pain from The Drive that John Elway once jabbed through Accorsi’s heart. Manning led the Giants 83 yards down the field in 12 plays and just over two minutes.
 
His final pass was a 13-yarder to Plaxico Burress in the end zone, giving the Giants an improbable 17-14 lead that they would never relinquish. Just 35 seconds later Manning was a Super Bowl MVP and the Giants — not the perfect Patriots — were the world champs.
 
Go figure. The droopy-eyed, 27-year-old quarterback that New Yorkers have never quite been able to figure out is now the toast of the town and the darling of a Bill Belichick-hating nation. He led a masterful run through the playoffs that included all four wins away from home. And with the help of a sack-happy defense, he revived a team that started 0-2 and was booed off its home field just seven weeks ago.
 
It’s perhaps the most remarkable story of this NFL season, capped by a win that Giants co-owner John Mara called “the greatest victory in the history of this franchise, without question.” An upstart team that had no business being on the same field with the 18-0 Patriots, led by a quarterback who wasn’t in the great Tom Brady’s class.
 
Yet it was Manning and the Giants who twice rallied from fourth-quarter deficits. They, not Brady and the Patriots, were the ones who came through in the end.
 
And while the world may have doubted if Manning was capable of such an upset, even when he trailed by four with less than three minutes remaining he knew he had the Patriots right where he wanted them to be.
 
“What situation would you want to be in?” Manning said. “You want to be down by four at the end of the game, where you kind of have to score a touchdown. If you're down by three, you might just settle for a field goal. You're better off down by four, where you have to score a touchdown to win the game in the Super Bowl.
 
“To go and do it is an unbelievable feeling.”
 
He even sprinkled in an unbelievable play — one that will rightfully follow him for his entire career. On 3rd-and-5 on the final drive from his own 44, he faced heavy pressure and was caught by New England’s Richard Seymour and Jarvis Green.
 
Yet somehow, miraculously, he escaped their clutches, rolled out, and located his receiver 32-yard down field. Then he placed the ball in the only spot where David Tyree could catch it — at the top of his reach, just above safety Rodney Harrison. Tyree pinned the ball against his helmet, fell backwards towards the ground, and made sure to never let go of the ball.
 
“People were asking me how I got out of that jam I was in,” Manning said. “I really don’t know.”
 
“That play from Manning to Tyree,” added defensive tackle Barry Cofield, “was the greatest play I’ve ever seen.”
 
There probably have been greater plays in Super Bowl history, and greater drives, and maybe even greater games. But when you throw in the circumstances — one of the most criticized quarterbacks in the NFL, staring down a dynasty for the ages — it’s hard to imagine a bigger moment in any of the previous 41 Super games.
 
It certainly was the biggest moment for Accorsi, who always knew his quarterback of choice had it in him. In fact, one year earlier when he retired from the Giants, he stood in the middle of their locker room and said “There’s a championship in this room.”
 
“Now, I had no idea it would be this year,” Accorsi said.
 
Neither did anyone else. Nobody believed Manning and the Giants were capable of this.
 
But nobody’s doubting any of them anymore.

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