Giants vs. Steelers

Today the 5-1 New York Giants traveled to Pittsburgh to play the 5-1 Steelers in a crucial NFC, AFC match up. The Giants knew they were going in be in a hostile enviornment, and knew it would be a tough game to win. The opening series for the Steelers was capped off by a 32 yard run by Mewelde Moore to give the Steelers an early 7-0 lead. The Giants came back with 9 straight points all on field goals by kicker John Carney to give the Giants a 9-7 lead going into half time. The third quarter was a sloppy quarter, but became exciting when the Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger threw a 65 yard pass to wide reciever Nate Washington to put the Steelers back on top 14-9. The next score was by Giants kicker, John Carney, who hit his fourth field goal of the day to put the Giants within 2 in the fourth quarter. The game changed in the fourth quarter when it was fourth down and the Steelers were lined up to punt, and the snap went sailing over Steelers punter Mitch Berger's head out of the end zone for a safety to tie the game up. The Giants got the ball back on the insuing punt becuase of the safety and drove down the field and scored what ended up being the game winning touchdown with a pass from Eli Manning to tight end Kevin Boss with just 3:11 left. The Giants ended up winning the game improving to 6-1, while the Steelers fell to 5-2. It was an overall good hard hitting game, with plenty of excitment. I planned on traveling to Pittsburgh for this game, but I'm glad I ended up with no tickets because of the loss. :(

Cowboys vs Cardinals

Today the Dallas Cowboys faced off against the Arizona Cardinals in a crucial NFC match-up. The game became exciting on the opening kick off when Cardinals return man J.J. Arrington returned the kick 93 yards for a touchdown to give the home team Cardinals an early 7-0 lead. The first quarter was filled with errors and turnovers from both Kurt Warner and Tony Romo, each teams respective quarterbacks. The game slowed down a little until the end of the first half when Romo hit wide reciever Patrick Crayton over the middle for a 55 yard touchdown pass which tied the game going into half time. Each team scored a touchdown in the third quarter which made it all even going into the final quarter. The Cardinals struck first in the fourth when Warner threw an 11 yard pass to wide reciever Steve Breaston, which gave the Cardinals a 21-14 lead. Cardinals kicker Neil Rackers kicked a 41 yard field goal on the next series to give them a 24-14 lead, which did not last for long. Tony Romo then hit running back Marion Barber on a short pass which turned into a 70 yard tocuhdown pass to bring the Cowboys to within three with time winding down. At the end of regulation, Cowboys kicker Nick Folk hit a 52 yard field goal to send the exciting game into over time. The visiting Cowboys won the coin toss to begin over time but had a very uneventful three downs, then it went down hill from there. They were lined up to punt from their own five, when the Cardinals broke through the line and blocked the Matt McBrair punt and returned it for a touchdown to win the game. I was very happy that the Cowboys lost the game, because they are my least favorite team in the NFL. It was a very exciting game which had an amazing finish.

Yesterday the Los Angeles Dodgers faced off against the Philadelphia Phillies in the first game of the National League Championship series. Going into the game everyone thought that it was going to be a low scoring game, because both teams had their number one starters pitching. For the Phillies it was Cole Hamels, and for the Dodgers it was Derek Lowe who was 4-0 in his last 6 post-season starts going into last night. The Dodgers jumped out to an early 1-0 lead in the first inning when Manny Ramirez bashed a RBI double to the deepest part of the ball park off the top of the center field wall. The score was stuck at 1-0 until the fourth inning when Dodgers rookie second baseman Blake DeWitt hit a single which scored the final run for the Dodgers which made it 2-0 after four innings. The Philadelphia faithful was getting restless until the home team bats came alive in the sixth inning. The inning started off with a ground ball to short stop Rafael Furcal who made a poor throw to first baseman James Loney which allowed Phillies center fielder Shane Victorino to advance to second. The next pitch thrown by Derek Lowe was a fastball to the struggling Chase Utley who belted it to the right field bleachers to tie the game at 2-2. Dodgers manager Joe Torre stuck with Lowe for a couple more batters after that. Next up was Phillie's slugger Ryan Howard who grounded out, and following him was left fielder Pat Burrell who on the first pitch he saw hit a line drive home run into the left fielder bleachers just over the wall. That was the end of the night for Lowe, after failing to hold his teams 2-0 lead. The scoring was done after the sixth inning and the Phillies went on to hold the 3-2 lead until the end of the game. It was unfortionate that the Dodgers lost seeing that I am not a fan of the Phillies at all. The two teams play again today at four o'clock.