I know I know, the Giants played horribly the other night. Everyone wants to blame the game plan, the coaches, the players — it was a disaster. They hit bottom. But as I rewatch the first half of action, I can’t help but think what might have been if the ball bounced a bit differently for the Giants on Thanksgiving night.

While the Giants confidence is clearly shaken at every level, and while we the fans want to hold the organization’s feet to the fire, as I try to unravel what truly went wrong for the Giants it’s becoming more and more clear that the Giants had one of those perfect storm games where some small missteps here and there became magnified throughout the course of the game.

So, before I get into my weekly long and ranting Unpacking The Loss post I want to first go on the record and say this: what clearly may be the final nail in the coffin for the Giants season is not clearly the fault of any one person, it was a bunch of little things that went wrong — some controllable, some not — and it added up to a big stinking loss.

Specifically, a different outcome to these plays may have changed the tone of the game for the Giants — and thus our feeling about how badly the team played in general:

• Mario Manningham’s first down catch that wasn’t

• Travis Beckum’s 9 yard pickup sent backwards 20 yard by Brian Dawkins’ helmet

• Danny Ware’s fumble

• Steve Smith’s dropped cross off his hands

What is represented here is 4 separate Giants drives that ended in punts or turnovers — obviously which effected the offensive production for the Giants or lack thereof.

However, each of these plays on a different day or different field or with slightly different timing could have changed the outcome of the game for the Giants. It just so happened that these micro-disasters all happened in succession and incrementally made the day impossible for the Giants to turn things around and come out on top.

An analogy is like a real life plane crash — an engine doesn’t fall off, or explode, or get sucked into a portal a la Donnie Darko. In real life, plane crashes occur when a bunch of little mistakes happen oddly in succession to create one big circumstance of disaster. Some of these mistakes are controllable, some aren’t. Some mistakes were great defensive plays by Denver, some were uncharacteristic drops from perfectly thrown balls, some were just dumb luck with Dawkins’ helmet ending up right on the ball. This was what forced Big Blue’s jumbo jet from the sky Thanksgiving night… a series of little mistakes adding up to a huge failure that left them unable to maneuver and save the craft.

I’ll have more on the breakdown this weekend – but I think a little optimism will serve us well. All is not lost. Next Sunday is a new day, a new destination – and a renewed focus on the mission… winning games and making it to the Playoffs.