EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — It was Andy Reid’s moment.
His last-seeded team had soundly beaten the top-seeded, healthy, well-rested, home-standing Giants.
He’d been hugged by the quarterback he’d benched. He’d hugged his wife, and every assistant’s wife who wanted one.
He’d addressed a room full of dissectors and doubters.
Once vilified, now victorious, and . . . validated?
“Bah. I don’t get into all that,” Reid said.
He had every right to.
When his team was 5-5-1, when his head was being called for (or at least his duties as personnel architect), when his quarterback was being run out of town — nothing Reid did was right, or good enough, and what he had done was collateral evaporated.
Now, with his team having won six of seven, back in the NFC Championship Game for the fifth time in less than a decade and fresh off upsetting the reigning Super Bowl champs, Reid could have gloated.
He ran it early to open things up later. He called a quarterback sneak for the only significant offensive touchdown. He managed the clock expertly at the end of the first half, which led to a go-ahead field goal. He dialed up a bomb when he could have — maybe should have — milked clock.
It all worked.
It left his boss beaming.
“I feel great” for Reid, owner Jeffrey Lurie said. “Five out of eight is hard to pull off.”
Harder still when, in reaching 5-5-1, Reid benched franchise quarterback Donovan McNabb midway through a loss in Baltimore.
Lurie could have fired Reid that night. He could have ended the McNabb era, too.
He didn’t.
“In sports, so many reflex reactions almost flare in the way,” said Lurie, often derided himself since he took over in 1994. Knee-jerk isn’t Lurie’s way: “To change a coach, to do something like that … It’s not based on popularity. There are so many decisions you have to make as an owner, that are going to be the most unpopular decisions … I have a lot of faith. Sometimes it pans out well.”
Lurie’s faith in Reid has panned out, again.
Reid’s decisions panned out Sunday.
A Giants turnover gave the Birds the ball on the Giants’ two early in the first quarter. Reid ran it, lost a yard, called a pass, drew a penalty, ran it again, and gained a yard. At the one, he called on McNabb’s bulk and strength and was rewarded with a 7-3 lead.
“The biggest thing, there, you’re running the ball,” right tackle Jon Runyan said. “You’re making them honor it.”
By the time the Eagles fired up their two-minute offense at the end of the first half, Reid and Co. had called 12 runs and nine passes.
In the middle of that clock-management drill, there came a moment when Reid — a notoriously poor time manager — could have blown it.
McNabb had completed a pass that put the ball at midfield with 40 seconds to play and one timeout. Reid called the timeout; failing to do so, regrouping and spiking the ball, would have cost the Eagles about 10 precious seconds.
Instead, the Eagles ran five more plays, got two good shots at the end zone and regained the lead, 10-8.
And then, the trademark Reid moment.
Near midfield, with six minutes to play, with a nine-point lead, on second-and-11, Reid went for broke. McNabb found DeSean Jackson for a 48-yard bomb. The resulting field goal made it a two-touchdown game.
“It’s important to stay aggressive in those situations,” Reid recited.
It is his credo.
“It’s a shot,” Runyan said. “It doesn’t work, people are wondering why you did it.”
“It’s what we do,” left tackle Tra Thomas said.
It’s what Reid does.
It worked.
Afterward, a title always in his eyes, he calmly asked his ecstatic team to remember that this was just a step toward that end. He reiterated that sentiment to a room full of scribes and such who, before Thanksgiving, generally figured Reid would be wrestling with Senior Bowl plans in Mobile, Ala., not Super Bowl possibilities that run through Phoenix on Sunday.
There, his white and rusty playoff beard finally less a patchy shag than a distinguished effort, he deflected: “I don’t get that philosophical, man. I’m glad to be here.”
Then he hugged his wife, and the other wives. He posed for friendly snapshots in the bowels of the doomed stadium where he twice saved his season. And he walked away, smiling, but not smug.
“I don’t get into all that,” he repeated.
Then he half-turned back, and said, “Crazy, isn’t it?”
Absolutely nuts.