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| | Wednesday, January 24
Outcasts find homes on Giants' O-line
By Wayne Drehs
ESPN.com
TAMPA, Fla. -- Giants guard Glenn Parker said Tuesday he wants to win Super Bowl XXXV for tackle Lomas Brown. Brown said he wants to win it for Parker. Both said it would be nice to get a ring for guard Ron Stone.
|  | | Glenn Parker is one of the refugees who's found a home on the Giants' offensive line. |
Such is the me-last, teammates-first attitude of one of the most cohesive and selfless offensive lines in the NFL. It's a group that has become just as notorious for its success on the field, as its practical jokes and carefree personality off it.
With such camaraderie, you would think the unit has been together for years and is just now coming into its own. But you'd be wrong. Only one player, Stone, an eight-year veteran of the Giants, starts in the same position as he did last season.
It's a group that Giants general manager Ernie Accorsi patched together in the offseason, after growing increasingly frustrated with a line that had become notorious for its missed blocks and costly penalties.
So he searched in the scrap heap of other teams. There he found Parker, an 11-year veteran who played in four Super Bowls with the Buffalo Bills but was written off as too old.
Then he found Brown, a 16-year NFL veteran who had been cast off by four teams and was considered a troublemaker for his problems with Cleveland coach Chris Palmer.
Then he signed center Dusty Zeigler, a five-year NFL veteran who the Bills considered expendable.
Nobody paid much attention when the signings were made last offseason. Coach Jim Fassel himself even called them "unsexy."
Throw in the fact that offensive line coach Jim McNally moved 1999 first-round bust Luke Petitgout from guard to tackle, and you needed nametags to introduce these guys to one another back in March. Yet now, some 10 months after the group first met, they are starting in the Super Bowl.
"It's worked because we're a bunch of outcasts," Zeigler said. "We're all the same people, having been written off. So we were motivated to pull together. There's just so much intelligence and character here. It's a good time."
Though Kerry Collins, Tiki Barber and Ike Hilliard may steal most of the headlines for the Giants' offense this week, just as critical to their success against Baltimore on Sunday will be this group of linemen.
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Those guys, they are a bunch of characters. They've really pulled together so well as a group and that's hard to do today with this era of free agency. They bring a lot of fun to the locker room. ” |
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— Kerry Collins, Giants quarterback |
They're the ones who will need to plow their way through defensive tackles Tony Siragusa and Sam Adams and then track down linebacker Ray Lewis for a secondary block. In all three of Baltimore's playoff games, the Ravens have at least temporarily knocked the opposing quarterback out of the game. The Giants cannot afford such misfortunes.
"There are going to be a lot of times against them where we're going to be unsuccessful on Sunday," Zeigler said. "So we're going to have to keep hitting the rock until it cracks. It's going to be a situation when we're unsuccessful. We can't abandon the ship."
So far, the unit has been successful in doing just that, holding the defenses of both the Eagles and the Vikings to just one sack each in those playoff games. Against Minnesota, the line opened enough holes for Barber and gave Collins enough time in the pocket that the offense gained 518 yards, the third-highest total in team history and the most in a postseason game.
All this from a bunch of guys nobody wanted. Two weeks ago, in preparation for the NFC championship game against the Vikings, Petitgout put together his "O-Line" collection of hats and T-shirts, which carried the slogan, "Overworked and under-appreciated." They caught the attention of media and teammates alike.
"Those guys, they are a bunch of characters," Collins said. "They've really pulled together so well as a group and that's hard to do today with this era of free agency. They bring a lot of fun to the locker room."
They also bring fun to the parking lot, where the group met after every home
football game this year for a little tailgate of its own. The guys frequently go out for dinner together as well.
"It's the best group I've been with, the most caring group," Brown said. "That's what makes it so fun. We've been together since the end of March and to be with a group of people that
long, you really have to like them."
A big part of the reason for this group's success is the hands-off style of McNally, who respected veterans Brown, Parker
and Zeigler enough that he didn't force-feed them advice about their techniques. Instead, he made small suggestions.
"He took the approach that you can't teach an old dog new tricks," Zeigler said. "He taught us things in the spring and then stepped back and let us do what we needed to be successful. He let the game come to us."
Parker agrees. "He let us be veterans and didn't try too hard. He accepted all of us for what we were and it worked."
And should it pay off for one more game, the Giants will be
Super Bowl champs -- no matter who wants the ring most.
Wayne Drehs is a staff writer at ESPN.com.
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