Boss makes up for fumble with TD reception

SEATTLE - It wasn't as if Kevin Boss never had lost a fumble before. There was that time in his first college season at Western Oregon and then, well, that was it, actually.

Until yesterday, when the Giants tight end coughed up the ball for what he said was the second time in his life, and the first time as a pro, at the worst time possible.

"It wasn't the way I wanted to start," Boss said of his mistake on the team's opening drive against the Seahawks at Qwest Field.

That was partly because the Giants were desperate to get off to a fast start to subdue Seattle's famously boisterous crowd.

And it was partly because there were more than 100 friends and relatives in attendance - 37 of whom used tickets Boss purchased - for the lifelong Oregonian's first NFL game in the Pacific Northwest.

Fortunately for Boss and the Giants, the horrific start quickly was erased. As he said later, "I guess if I wouldn't have done that, we probably would have won 49-to-whatever-it-was."

Close enough. The final was 41-7, thanks in part to Boss' first touchdown of a season in which he has played a diminished role in the passing attack. (His two receptions gave him 14 at the season's midway point. Last year he finished with 42.)

"It felt good to get into the end zone after that [fumble]," he said.

It came with 53 seconds left in the first half and made the score 35-0. From the Seattle 5-yard line, Eli Manning scrambled, then spotted Boss making a move along the back of the end zone. He threw it over the heads of two defenders, and the 6-6 Boss picked it out of the air.

"I'll be honest: I wanted one pretty bad for the friends and family that were here," he said. "Eli gave me a good ball, high enough where the defender couldn't get it."

Boss said he did not speak to Manning about how much scoring would mean to him, but he speculated the quarterback "probably was trying to look that way, being the guy that he is."

Manning said he was happy to get Boss a touchdown but did not specifically target him.

"I was just scrambling right and saw him working the back of the end zone, threw it high and he did a good job of going up and getting it," Manning said.

Boss' cheerful tone in the locker room was in stark contrast to the last time a Giants tight end spoke to reporters after a game in Seattle.

After a 42-30 loss in 2006 - the year before Boss joined the team - Jeremy Shockey made headlines by saying, "We got outplayed and outcoached. Write that down."

Boss' official take after helping the Giants badly outplay the Seahawks? "Pretty neat," he said.