Giants' playoff loss to 49ers in 2003 was the craziest

The Giants' Rich Seubert (69), Luke Petitgout (77), Tam Hopkins (65) and Marcellus Rivers (83) look for a pass interference call after a botched field goal attempt against the 49ers in the closing moments of a playoff game in San Francisco on Jan. 5, 2003. Credit: AP/Julie Jacobson
It was snowing. I had not slept on my red-eye flight. I had arrived by taxi at Giants Stadium at 7 in the morning to retrieve my car, at which time I discovered taxis from Newark Airport to Giants Stadium cost more than I knew.
So I had to beg the guard in the security booth at the players’ entrance to lend me $10, with the promise I would return when the locker room opened to reporters that afternoon and pay him back. He reluctantly obliged.
I was too dazed and confused to care. This was on Jan. 6, 2003, and was a fitting twist less than 12 hours after the conclusion of by far the craziest game I have covered, attended, watched, listened to, read about or otherwise experienced in a half-century of following sports.
It also was the most complicated.
Shortly after filing our inadequate game stories, Paul Schwartz of the New York Post and I agreed there was only one way to properly chronicle the Giants’ 39-38 loss to the 49ers in a wild-card playoff game at 3Com Park:
With a book. A long one.
It’s all a blur now, just as it was that evening.
Jeremy Shockey threw a cup of ice at a young fan. The Giants blew a 38-14 third-quarter lead. Trey Junkin came out of retirement to long snap for the Giants and botched two snaps, one on a potential game-winning field goal.
Cris Collinsworth, calling his first playoff game for Fox, messed up a rules explanation that left millions of viewers confused. The Giants’ undermanned defensive line was relying on Frank Ferrara, a stuntman from Staten Island.
The Giants’ Shaun Williams got into a fight with the 49ers’ future Hall of Fame receiver, Terrell Owens. Niners quarterback Jeff Garcia ran around a lot.
Some of all that probably is out of order.
There was so much going on that what would later become the biggest story to come out of that game initially was an afterthought, a mere paragraph or so in the initial game story.
Giants guard Rich Seubert was stewing in the visiting locker room that he had declared himself an eligible receiver before being dragged down by the 49ers’ Chike Okeafor on a desperate pass from holder Matt Allen. This was after Junkin’s errant snap on Matt Bryant’s 41-yard try for a winning field goal in the final seconds.

Matt Allen of the Giants can't handle the low snap on a field goal attempt as time expired against the 49ers in the NFC Wild Card game at 3Com Park on Jan. 5, 2003, in San Francisco. Credit: Getty Images/Donald Miralle
Referee Ron Winter, without conferring with colleagues, ruled the game over because the Giants had an ineligible receiver downfield — which they did, guard Tam Hopkins — but he did not recognize Okeafor’s foul on Seubert because no one told him Seubert was eligible.
The penalties should have offset, giving Junkin, Allen and Bryant another crack at it.
That week, Paul Tagliabue would describe the incident as the most disappointing involving officiating in his then 13 years as commissioner. It led to new guidelines for officials talking things out with one another before making decisions.
But it was too late for those Giants, who had been on a late-season roll and seemed poised for a deep playoff run.
Many follow-up articles have been written about that game, several by me. But no book — yet.
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