Giants.com

Giants 20, Eagles 10
January 7, 2001

'Spies' Barrow, Griffin Help Contain McNabb
by Michael Eisen, Giants.com

East Rutherford, NJ - How do you make Donovan McNabb virtually disappear?

You put a spy on him.

That's what the Giants did to the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback on Sunday, often assigning a defensive player to shadow McNabb, the versatile and dangerous second-year quarterback. McNabb rushed for just 17 yards on five carries, completed 20 of 41 passes for 181 yards and was sacked six times as the Giants defeated Philly, 20-10, in an NFC Divisional Playoff game.

Mike Barrow was one of the spies assigned to McNabb. That seems logical. Barrow is a veteran linebacker with savvy and speed. The other frequently-used spy is perhaps not so obvious - rookie defensive tackle Cornelius Griffin.

"We've played against a lot of mobile quarterbacks this season and I thought our defensive linemen did an excellent job all game," defensive coordinator John Fox said. "Griffin was one of our defensive linemen who were in the game at that time, both in our regular and sub defenses. We lined him up in a position where he could get out of the defensive line and get into a position like a linebacker and spy.

"I'm not saying in a one-on-one footrace Cornelius would beat Donovan McNabb. But he was the fastest we had and I thought he did an excellent job. We did not want to take anyone out of coverage (to spy on McNabb). In some of our sub things, Barrow was the spy. But we didn't play a lot of that tonight. When we elected to spy it was with Cornelius."

Barrow finished the game with a team-high 11 tackles. Griffin, who played fewer snaps, had four, including 1 ½ sacks.

"When I'm the spy I go wherever the quarterback goes," said Griffin, who learned of his role last Wednesday. "When he starts scrambling, I go after him. I pursue and I go attack him.

"We had a four-man rush that became a three-man rush and the tackle drops back. I couldn't let him put a move on me and go 80 yards for a touchdown. There was one time when he beat me for seven yards and got a first down. Other than that I stayed close to him."

Griffin was asked if McNabb ever said anything to him like, "man, I'm getting sick of seeing you."

"There were a couple of times in the game when he just smiled at me. There wasn't any trash talking."

*Tiki Barber played with a fiberglass brace on his left arm to broken the small facture in his forearm. He rushed for 35 yards on 15 carries and caught three passes for 13 yards. Barber also lost a fumble, but said the brace had nothing to do with the turnover.

Barber said the Eagles never followed through on their threat to go after Barber's injury.

"I mean, there's really no way for you to go after it unless you're -- you know, it's already going to hurt," Barber said. "There's nothing they could have done."

Barber's backfield mate, Ron Dayne, rushed for 53 yard after getting 42 yards combined in the final three regular season games.

"We knew that Ron was going to be a big part of what we're going to do offensively," Barber said. "He hit the holes yard hard, picked up the yardage, and that's what we needed from him if we're going to go far with this him."

*The victory was the first in the playoffs for Jim Fassel, who can now erase the last vestiges of that discouraging blown lead against the Minnesota Vikings in 1997. The Giants led the Vikings, whom they will play in next week's NFC Championship Game, by nine points with two minutes to play, but lost, 23-22.

"You know, somebody asked me that, I got asked on television just as I was coming here, I didn't even think about it," Fassel said. "I swear to God I didn't even think about it this being my first playoff win. All I thought is the Giants beat the Eagles and we are going to the NFC Championship Game. That's all I thought about, honestly. I don't worry about that stuff. I really don't worry about it."

*Ron Dixon scored a touchdown by returning the opening kickoff 97 yards. That capped quite a comeback for the rookie receiver, who was suspended for the Pittsburgh game on December 10 after me missed a meeting the previous day.

"The young man has been really good, but I know one thing, going into this week, I put all safety guards in place," Fassel said. "I don't want that guy showing up late by any type of accident. I told Charlie (Way, former fullback and now an assistant coach), because he's supposed to call Charlie we've got all of these things, I said it could be the most innocent thing could happen to the young man, but I can't deal with it right now so I want to make sure everything is in place with them. And he's trying. Ron has been doing -- he's here early, doing all these things. It's good for him to get that done right now.

"Something we wanted him to do and we talked about how we are going to hit it with him and he's practicing better that way of hitting. We hit the crease and he took it. I knew he could do that. We just needed to see him do it one time."

Said Dixon: "This was something special to me. You know, this was a special game, a big game, I'm a big-time player. So I wanted to make a big play, try to set the tone for the offense and defense, the whole team."

*Fassel and many players spoke of the tremendous lift they got from the crowd of 78,765, the largest ever to see the Giants in Giants Stadium. As they passed through the games, the fans were given white towels, courtesy of the Giants and Verizon. Thousands of fans waved those towels and made the stadium a noise factory from kickoff to final gun.

"The fans, unbelievable. Our fans were tremendous," Fassel said. "Our fans were as loud as we've ever seen them, into the game, brought a lot of support to our team, got them excited and that's the way they played. I'm proud of this team and proud that we're going to be playing for the NFC championship next week."

"Our fans came to play," guard Glenn Parker said. "It was the first time this season they really got going. It reminded me of Kansas City a little bit (where Parker played for the Chiefs in noisy Arrowhead Stadium). They were out there screaming. If you can point to one big advantage, it was the fans."