When Bulaga went back to the field after halftime Sunday, he said, he sat on the bench and watched Giants players filing back out for the second half. "I know what it's like on the opposite side of that, because I remember when they did it to us," Packers tackle Bryan Bulaga said.įive years ago, in that very same end zone in this very same stadium, with time expiring in the first half, Giants quarterback Eli Manning hit Hakeem Nicks with a Hail Mary that turned a 13-10 game into a 20-10 game and helped propel the Giants to an upset of a 15-1 Packers team and, a few weeks later, a Super Bowl title. The mere math of it all was discouraging enough.īut over in the Green Bay locker room, they knew it was more than that. For a team that averaged 19.4 points per game in its otherwise impressive 11-5 regular season, this was no small problem. The Giants, who had reason to feel as if they'd dominated the Packers throughout the first half, were suddenly down 14-6 at halftime. The effect it had on the game and respective seasons of those two teams was total. Rodgers rolled to his right, gave his receivers time to get into the end zone and then heaved a steep, 64-yard parabola into the back of the end zone, where Randall Cobb caught it, kept his toes in bounds and put six impossible points on the scoreboard. The biggest happened Sunday, just before halftime of the Green Bay Packers' 38-13 wild-card victory over the New York Giants. He has executed three of them now, in NFL games, in the span of about 13 months. "I just closed my eyes," he said, "and said a Hail Mary."įor Aaron Rodgers, the Hail Mary at this point is more play than prayer. Asked about the play after the game, Staubach explained that he was knocked down as he threw and had no idea what was happening. "Hail Mary" wasn't a football term until 1975, when Dallas Cowboys quarterback and former Catholic school kid Roger Staubach hit Drew Pearson for a 50-yard game winner in the playoffs against the Minnesota Vikings. Specifically, this prayer asks for help - for the intercession on the praying individual's behalf by a celestial figure believed to have the ear of the highest of higher powers.
It is taught to young Catholic children as part of a nightly bedtime ritual. The "Hail Mary" is, by definition, a prayer. Hail, yeah: How Aaron Rodgers' prayer put the Giants to bed
#HAIL MARY FOOTBALL PACKERS GIANTS UPGRADE#
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