GREEN BAY, Wis. -- His right foot is black and blue, and this will not do. This will not do at all. New York Giants kicker Lawrence Tynes is a fastidious sort -- every button is buttoned, every hair in place, every tooth is immaculate -- and for him to walk around with ugly bruising on his right foot, well, that will have to be addressed this week.
"Some ice, some sort of cream," he said. "I'll take care of it."
Of course he will. Lawrence James Henry Tynes is all about the details. It is his attention to detail, in fact, that allowed him to convert one of the more improbable kicks in NFL postseason history, the 47-yarder in overtime that lifted the Giants to a 23-20 victory Sunday against Green Bay for the NFC championship and a spot in the Super Bowl.
After the game Tynes was asked repeatedly how he had been able to make that kick in overtime after missing two tiebreaking attempts in the final seven minutes of the fourth quarter, including a 36-yard shank on the final play of regulation.
The unspoken question was clear: After choking twice, how did he not choke a third time? Answer: Tynes doesn't think he choked. Not the first time when he missed a 43-yarder with 6:49 left in regulation, and not the second time when he badly missed from 36.
The first miss was the wind's fault, Tynes said of gusts that dropped the wind chill to minus-20 throughout the game and then pushed his 43-yarder wide left. He learned from that one and started his winning kick a little farther to the right than normal, and let the wind guide it through the goalposts. The second miss, he said, was "the operation," referring to a high snap that had holder Jeff Feagles stretching to catch the ball and then rushing to set it down.
"A little bit of a high snap threw the timing off," he said. "I'm moving into the kick and then when I have to slow down, there's nowhere for me to go, so I go sideways -- and so does the kick. To me that was not a perfect operation. If everything had been perfect (on the final kick of regulation) I'd have been upset with myself, but I knew we could do better."
That's how he justified to himself his first two misses and managed to stay cool for the overtime kick, even as his head coach was seething and his teammates were seemingly freezing him out. After Tynes' first miss, coach Tom Coughlin angrily yelled at him, "Come on!"
After Tynes' second miss, the one that forced overtime, none of his teammates said a word to him on the sideline. None but his holder, Feagles, who gave him the usual, "Keep your head up, we're going to need you again." Everyone else on the Giants sideline ignored him, even the team managers, who had been keeping players warm all game. They didn't bother to drape a jacket over Tynes' shoulders as he stood alone near midfield, listening to the crowd cheer for his miss and watching the Packers win the coin flip to get the ball first -- and perhaps exclusively, had Brett Favre not thrown that interception -- in overtime.
Tynes would say later that the lack of communication from his teammates was "no big deal. ... I don't talk to anyone during games anyway." He would also explain away his decision not to celebrate his winning kick on the field with his teammates. As the ball was tumbling through the uprights, silencing the Lambeau Field crowd and sending his teammates onto the field in a frenzy, Tynes turned and ran 75 yards through the opposite end zone, through the tunnel and into the locker room. He ran alone.
"I was cold," he said. "I wanted to get inside."
Maybe it's just that simple -- his teammates were celebrating a trip to the Super Bowl, but he was cold. He'd meet them inside. Who knows? But I will say this: I shadowed Tynes for most of an hour inside the Giants locker room, and Feagles was again the only teammate who said a word to him. Yes, there was a 10-minute period immediately after the game when the media was not allowed inside the locker room, and perhaps the entire organization used that time to kiss Tynes' feet -- but for the next hour, not a single teammate said a word to the guy who kicked the game-winning field goal in the NFC title game. That seems strange.
But then, Tynes is a little strange -- at least for the culture of the NFL. He spent his first 10 years in Scotland, the son of a U.S. Navy master chief, and didn't play football until his senior year of high school in Milton, Fla. Before landing with the Giants he was cut twice by Kansas City and spent one year kicking professionally in Europe and two in Canada. And of course he's a kicker, an ostracizing position. While his teammates were doing their thing on the team's practice field late last week, Tynes was alone inside Giants Stadium working on his own.
Tynes was alone again Sunday after the game. A winning NFL locker room is a loud, emotional place. Multiply that by XLII and you've got the atmosphere inside the Giants locker room. But Tynes dressed quietly, slipping his still-tied tie over his neck and buttoning every button on his double-breasted blue suit and pushing his hair just right and saying to no one in particular, "I've got to brush my teeth." He uses an electric toothbrush, if you're wondering. An electric toothbrush and Crest. Details matter.
Details certainly matter to Tynes. During his postgame news conference a reporter said to him: "During the regular season you were like 22-for-26. Is this the first time you missed two field goals in a game?"
And Tynes answered: "I was 23-for-27, and yes."
Two misses in one game -- in the fourth quarter, no less -- but kicking in this game couldn't have been easy. Both teams averaged less than 33 yards per punt. Kickoffs were stalling near the 15-yard line. The sub-zero temperature turned the ball slippery and hard -- so hard that it left bruises all over the top of Tynes' foot.
"I didn't feel it during the game," Tynes said. "But I feel it now."
Things could feel worse. Tynes could have missed that kick in overtime. Imagine being that guy -- the fastidious Scottish kicker who cost his team not one, not two, but three chances to get to the Super Bowl. Tynes briefly allowed himself to consider that possibility.
"Make the kick," he remembers thinking, "or I'm spending the night in Appleton."
Alone. As usual.
Source:By Gregg Doyel
CBSSports.com National Columnist
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