Lame Sports

The Superbowl Aftermath - We Were Right

By Jason Levy

I told you to believe the hype.  I was wrong.  No matter how much it tried, the hype couldn’t match what took place on the field Sunday night in Arizona.  History was made, logic was defied, men morphed into legends and legends morphed into men, and sixty years from now we’ll all tell our grandchildren what we witnessed that February night.  But I was right about one thing.  Destiny belonged to the New York Giants, who received every gift from the football gods, and won quite possibly the greatest Super Bowl ever, and the New England Patriots are the owners of the worst 18-1 record in NFL history. 

I had been very critical of the Giants in the past.  Their play never matched their talk.  Under Tom Coughlin (and Jim Fassel), it always seemed they wanted the credit before they accomplished any feat.  I didn’t think they’d beat Tampa, Dallas, or Green Bay.  But their actions at long last spoke louder than any of their words, and the Giants became the team they always told us they were.  Erased is last year’s ugly 8-8 campaign.  Erased is Manning and Coughlin’s first playoff game together, an embarrassing 23-0 home loss to the Carolina Panthers.  They will be heroes forever in New York. 

Every play from Super Bowl XLII has been dissected and analyzed ad-nauseam, so I’ll only focus on one.  The Play.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you obviously didn’t watch the game.  Eli Manning ducking and spinning away from the clutches of the Patriots D-line, finding an open area outside the pocket, and sailing a pass to the middle of the field, where David Tyree, more known for his special teams prowess than his offense, went hand-to-hand with Rodney Harrison, cradled the ball between his hand and helmet, and somehow held on to the ball while falling to the turf.  If the Pats sack Eli, its fourth and long and the game is likely over.  If Tyree doesn’t hold on, its fourth and five, or Harrison could pick it off and end it right there.  But the football gods smiled on the Giants, and gave them a highlight we’ll see as long as there’s a Super Bowl.  It had everything a football play could want.  It combined The Catch (Dwight Clark), and The Drive (John Elway), and a prolific scramble (Michael Vick, Fran Tarkenton).  You don’t make plays like that in a losing effort.  The touchdown didn’t come until a few plays (and a terrific third and eleven conversion by Steve Smith) later, but the Giants won the game on The Play.  And we’ll call it The Play from now on, because The Scramble and Grab is too long

Even better than seeing the Giants win is seeing the Patriots lose.  No team deserved to have an undefeated season less than the Patriots.  They’ve had their championships, their dynasty has peaked.  And how appropriate is it that new Spygate allegations surfaced the day before the Super Bowl, from a Boston paper no less?  Bill Belichick may be a football genius, but he rude, smug, arrogant, and apparently has never heard the word “sportsmanship” before.  Every athlete hates to lose, but the least one could do is be gracious in defeat.  Time and evidence will tell if the Rams run through allegations are true and what impact they had for the Pats, but the last weekend was a black eye for the Pats franchise which will resonate longer than the drubbing they took in their first Super Bowl against the Bears.   

Watching the game in Brooklyn with other Giants fans/Pats haters we lived and died on every play.  We all had faith in the G-men, but we all knew how good the Patriots were, and how they could recapture the momentum in a millisecond.  But the Pats proved just how hard it is to go undefeated in the NFL.  If they couldn’t do it, it’s unlikely anyone ever will.  And it shows just how good those 1972 Miami Dolphins were in accomplishing that feat.  They deserve their champagne; they are members of an exclusive club.  And if you thought the Boston-New York rivalry was dead, think again, its reached new heights.  You’ll be certain to hear chants of “18 and 1″ the next time the Pats come to the Meadowlands to face the Jets, and chants “1918″ will be replaced by “18 and 1″ and Yankees-Red Sox games.  All 97.5 million people watching the game across the globe will remember where they were on February 3, 2008, when the Giants took down the Goliath, and The Play was made. 

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