It’s the morning of February 6, 2012, and the blast has passed. Although fallout levels are still likely dangerous, I’ve exhausted my stash of PBRs and must emerge. The worst is behind us now, I keep telling myself. The worst is behind us now.
As I climb up the ladder towards the hatch’s vault-like circular steel lock, all I feel is numb. And even as I work the lock hand over hand like a crazed pirate sailing in circles, the New England air that seeps through previously air-tight seal doesn’t feel as crisp. The sky is a bit yellow, few cars crawl along the streets, and a caustic melancholy hangs, feeling like it will never thin.
It comes with the territory of playing in five Super Bowls in 11 years, an unprecedented run the sports anchors tell us. But any way you cut it, I can assure you that losing a Super Bowl to New York is wicked uncool.
In my emotionally unstable state, I’ll start with a little ego coddling. Heading into this game I was criticized for picking the Giants against the Packers, against the 49ers, and eventually against the Patriots. I was told that I was trying to jinx the Giants, that I was picking the Giants in the self-interest of making a loss that much more bearable. To those who shared these sentiments, I’d like to share one of my own; I was right. I picked the Giants against teams that were 15-1, 13-3, and 13-3, and the Giants won them all. They earned this win, and good for them. Now onto the game…
From my perspective, this was the fastest football game that I’ve ever watched – it really seemed like the game was over in 15 minutes. Most Super Bowls that I’ve been invested in drag by, each play of excruciating importance seemingly playing out one act at a time. Not this time around. It seemed like Eli played great, and so did Tom. It seemed like both defenses played pretty damn well. It seemed like a pretty error free game. Everybody played well, and the Giants just happened to end up on top. From the perspective of a Giants fan, I don’t think anything could be more important.
We all know that Patriots fans (hell, NFL fans aside from Giants fans) think that 2007 was something of a fluke. Make no mistake about it, there was nothing flukey about this win. It was won as a football game should be won, and thus provides the validation that Eli Manning so desperately needed.
So now the fun part, the part that you all want to hear – I can’t hide forever without dishing on what this means for Eli Manning. Eli Manning just became the 11th quarterback in NFL history to win two Super Bowls – that’s one more Super Bowl win than his brother Peyton has, and in my eyes that puts him in an elite class. I think that Eli and Ben Roethlisberger now share a spot together in terms of their place in the current NFL landscape. I would now mention Eli in the handful of the best quarterbacks in the NFL – I’m not sure he has the talent of Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, or Drew Brees, but he has something that none of them aside from Brady have – a knack for winning. Yes, I think you have to call him one of the NFL’s elite quarterbacks.
My only knock against the Giants this time around was the general lack of class they showed around the Super Bowl – all of the shit-talking by their players leading into the game, posting that they were Super Bowl champions on their website before the game was even played, etc. But these are things that aren’t surprising, and from an on-field perspective the Giants took care of business.
As for the Patriots, you’ve got to feel for Wes Welker following his dropped pass. I think the Patriots were generally right in targeting Aaron Hernandez so much, and I also support Bill Belichick’s decision to let the Giants score in order to give Tom Brady the ball with some time left on the clock. Brady got the ball with 57 seconds to go and needed a touchdown, which he didn’t get. It was really the first time he failed to do what needed to be done with the Super Bowl on the line.
Sure, Rob Gronkowski was a non-factor in the game and was clearly severely inhibited by his ankle. But from a New England standpoint, none of these storylines are what this game was about. This game was about Tom Brady and Bill Belichick being denied the cherry on top, the win that would permanently cement them both as the best ever and allow them to ride off into the sunset no matter what happens in their remaining time together. As Bostonian’s have now realized with regards to the Celtics, there’s a window of opportunity that any team has to win. Tom Brady is 34 years old and should have 3-4 seasons left in him, but the window of opportunity is closing and there’s certainly no guarantee that he’ll ever have a shot at winning a 4th Super Bowl again. Ultimately, that’s why this loss hurts so much.
Kudos to the Giants, on a win whose importance cannot be understated for their franchise, and especially for their embattled quarterback. As for the Patriots, they made a season that started with little hope a whole lot of fun to watch. Let’s all hope that we get to see Brady versus Manning act number three.
damn it feels good to be a gangster
Congrats to Giants. They got a little lucky getting the fumbles back and watching the Patriots drop a couple of passes that might have won it. But they came through when they needed to and the Pats didn’t. Defenses outplayed offenses in this one.
“Yes, I think you have to call him one of the NFL’s elite quarterbacks”. Wow. I bet you never thought those words would come out of your mouth. And you laughed and called me crazy when I said this over a year ago. I think you have been “ELIghtened”
I think a year ago it was an absurd notion, and I’d laugh again.
what shit talking was any different then anything the pats did? brady said something about a party, giants said stuff about parades. A computer error on a website decalring the winner, a tv commercial for dicks declaring the winner in boston.
The media said all week the Giants spoke to much, and no one on the Pats talked any shit. Brady said “hopefully we’ll be back for a parade” and the joke that is the NY media aside from the Times made something out of nothing. Meanwhile, you have class acts like Brandon Jacobs that can only mutter “we decapitated them.” And computer glitch my ass.
No one seemed to care about the dicks commercial.
And jacobs meant that he took your crown, if that bothers you dont watch football.
The national media was all questioning the Giants talking well before Jacobs came out with that. Coupled with the website “mishap” and comments like Jacobs’ after the game, it wasn’t a great look for the organization. Please do not try to tell me Brandon Jacobs was trying to make something resembling a metaphor. The man’s about as smart as my left slipper.
Did you read the full quote or just the headline? Because in the next sentence he said we took their crown.
And the media was on jpp who said brady is not a god, oh the shit talking! The horror!
He isn’t. God would have made a better pass to welker and wouldn’t have grossly underthrown gronk
Just for the record (obviously you’ll hate this) but imagine if Gronk has caught the final pass to the endzone on the final play? Imagine the payback that would have been for the David Tyree catch?
well thank tim tewbow it didnt, and that would have been on the new york giants coaching staff for not either 1 taking a knee at the end, or 2 not telling them not to score
1) it was an attempted jinx. It turned out to be right, but you were trying to jinx them nonetheless.
2) nice article for the most part. I think I could hear your teeth grinding while I was reading it.
3) that was a great game. Very clean game. Few penalties and turnovers.
4) I couldn’t agree with you more about the speed of the game. I guess since both teams were checking down to underneath receivers a lot or running the ball the clock kept moving, but I was thinking the same thing as you that the game just FLEW by. All of a sudden I remember thinking we absolutely must get a stop here becauase somehow there is only 4 minutes left in the game.
It was a quick game, but Brady did not play great. He was very average. Two touchdown drives and numerous missed opportunities because of uncharacteristic accuracy issues is not great. As for pretty error free. Did we watch the same game? 12 men on the field 3 times (once negating a patriots fumble recovery), Brady committed a safety, ninkovich lined up in the neutral zone and jumped offside on a crucial 3rd down late in the game, the giants put the ball on the carpet a few times. Everybody did not play pretty well. Pats defense as they did all yet could not get off the field and aside from two drives the offense was pedestrian. The Giants played reasonably well on offense, taking what the Patriots gave them. But by no means did they play great, they had a vanilla game plan. As a Patriots fan I feel I can say with some certainty that the giants played better in every single phase of the game and it was a miracle that the patriots were in that game at the end. If anything it was a game of missed chances for each team.
Tom Brady set a Super Bowl record by going 16 for 16 at one point. I’d say he played just fine, and you’d probably say the same if it weren’t for 3 big drops in the 4th quarter. As with every football game, sure there were some mistakes. But in general I thought it was a pretty well played game by both teams. Nothing flukey about it a la last time around.
2 of those three drops were on the qb, he threw to the wrong shoulder on both and welker was wide open, they were just bad passes. and the safety is inexcusable. i wouldnt expect fine from the “best qb of the last 20 years.”