Don’t believe athletes when they claim an opponent’s trash-talk doesn’t get them fired-up. St. Louis remembered all the Giants’ pregame yapping about how they were going to beat up the soft Rams, heard all of Jessie
Armstead’s talking on the field, noticed Michael Strahan’s dancing over sacked quarterback Trent Green. St. Louis took it all in and seethed over it before, during, and after the 38-24 beating the Rams put on Big Blue yesterday at the Meadowlands.
Green threw for a career-high-tying four touchdowns, ran for a fifth, and was still gunning downfield with four minutes left. The much-maligned St. Louis defense notched three sacks and forced three turnovers. And afterwards the Rams said if the Giants want to play neighborhood bully, they need to find a new occupation, because they’re not all that.
“They talked a lot of stuff. For some reason the NFC East believes that they’re the biggest, baddest conference in the league, and they can just come down and huff and puff and blow us away. That’s not the case. We came out and dominated them,” said safety Keith Lyle, who had six tackles, forced a fumble, and ran 16 yards on a fake field goal to lead to the Rams’ third touchdown and a 21-7 lead.
“Let the fans decide who’s more physical. We put a lot of their guys out of the game. Every year they [talk] about how they’re gonna beat up on us, and every year we come up here and get more physical. That’s the bottom line. You call us out, we have to step up.”
Twice on kickoff returns, the Rams and Giants got into altercations. Just three plays into the Giants’ first possession, WR Amani Toomer caught a Kerry Collins pass on a slant and got crushed by three Rams – linebacker London Fletcher, strong safety Devin Bush, and Lyle.
Toomer suffered a concussion on the play, and lost the ball. Left corner Dexter McCleon snatched it up and ran it back 21 yards to the Giant one-yard line. Green threw a touchdown on the very next play, and the tone was set.
“We felt we had to stop the running game, then take Toomer out of the game. After that, we didn’t think any of (their other players could beat us),” McCleon said. “We weren’t going to do the talking. Talking wasn’t going to help you win a football game.”
That’s a lesson they say the Giants haven’t learned yet.
“They did all the talking last year when we played,” shrugged offensive tackle Orlando Pace, who could hardly be considered soft by even the toughest linemen. “We know that’s their M.O. They’re gonna talk about how physical they are, how they’re gonna come out and do this and do that.”
The notion seems almost incomprehensible, considering the Rams are the defending Super Bowl champs, but they had something to prove. They’d gone on the road and lost two of their last three. Some were calling them a soft flag football team. A loss would’ve left them at 7-3, behind both the Giants and Vikings in the NFC playoff seedings. And worse, many around the league – and in their own locker room – were questioning their intensity.
Before the game, WR Ricky Proehl had said: “I don’t think we’re playing the way we should be. I think there’s a side to our team that got complacent and arrogant. We have to get humble and hungry again.”
They looked starved last night, and took their pound of the Giants’ flesh.