About that third-and-goal shotgun draw

Around here we know how much everybody loves the shotgun draw. Let's for now, conveniently forget the times it has worked for the New York Giants, like on the two-point conversion Sunday vs. the Dallas Cowboys.

The Giants failed in the red zone (or 'green zone' in Tom Coughlin parlance) twice on Sunday. On one of those failures, while trailing 14-3, the Giants ran a shotgun draw on third-and-goal at the 10-yard line.

That drew boos from the MetLife Stadium crowd. It drew the ire of commenters around here.

So, why did the Giants do it? They don't seem to have a real good explanation, other than the fact that it sounds like it was a play that quarterback Eli Manning checked to.

"That was another one of those alert kind of deals where you have something called and you also have a run built in. We ended up going to the run," head coach Tom Coughlin said. "If that's the way that goes, that's ours. That's our fault. The thinking is to get the ball into the end zone. That's what the thinking is."

Manning said Monday that the Cowboys "played some things differently than what we expected" in goal-line situations.

"That (draw) was the call if they were single-high. We had a pass when they were playing Tampa 2, we thought maybe we could get them with the draw," Manning said. "Obviously third and goal from the 10 is not really the ideal situation and I thought maybe a draw might get us a chance to get a one on one with the safety and maybe get a touchdown."

So, what did the Cowboys defense do to the Giants on Sunday? Blogging The Boys has an excellent breakdown of the Cowboys basic defensive plan, and of how they snuffed out that third-and-goal shotgun draw.