Super Bowl XLII: Giants Stay Hot; Patriots Fall at Destiny's Door

I want to begin with a mea culpa. 

I was wrong. The Giants were the better team on Sunday. 

I tried to be as diplomatic as possible over the last two weeks, but I really believed the Patriots were a far superior team. 

I still believe it.

But the Giants’ improbable run could not be stopped. Not by Belichick, not by Brady, not by destiny itself.

That said, I’ve slipped into a sports related depression, the likes of which I haven’t seen since the 2003 ALCS. Food doesn't taste as good anymore. Beer doesn't go down as easy. Captain Morgan has been demoted to a Private.

It's awful.

The Giants defense played the perfect game. They were fantastic. They pressured Brady like no team has this season. They were able to keep Moss contained for most of the game. 

It was the perfect gameplan for what the Patriots threw at them.

The Giants’ offense was as terrible as we expected. They couldn't do anything all game.  Couldn't run, couldn't throw.

But who would have expected the Patriots’ offense to be even worse?

The Patriots played and coached tight. 

They had a fourth and two from the Giants 40 yard line and punted…something they haven’t done all season. 

Then they passed on a 47-yard field goal and went for it on fourth and long. 

Reminiscent of the Chargers against the Patriots in the playoffs last season.

They stayed away from the quick three-step drops that worked on both touchdown drives and in the entire second half of the first game, in favor of five and seven step drops that saw Brady get hit or sacked half the times he dropped back.

They never rolled out Brady, which worked great in the first matchup.

It was almost as if the Patriots thought, "We can just show up and win this game.”

I thought the Giants resembled the 1985 Patriots. I was wrong. They were the 2001 Patriots.

Like the 2001 Patriots, they’re one of the most improbable teams to ever win a Super Bowl. 

They were the seventh or eighth best team in the NFL this season. They were the third best team in the NFC. But like the '01 Patriots, they got hot, caught a few breaks and took advantage of teams that might have been looking past them.

The Giants outplayed the Patriots in every way. They were the better team for 56 minutes of the game. Long enough for karma, luck, football gods—whatever you want to call it, to take over.

The last four minutes of the game was absolutely excruciating. 

The Giants scored a touchdown because Asante Samuel jumped a route in the end zone instead of just trying to knock the ball down. Giants led by three.

After they traded possessions, the Patriots finally decided to drive down the field using the game plan they should have employed the entire game and score a touchdown to take the lead by four.

Then the most impressive string of luck, good fortune, fortuitous bounces, etc. kicked the crap out of the 2007 New England Patriots. 

It had been happening all game (how many fumbles did the Giants land on and how many interceptions were dropped?), but I didn’t realize that a higher power was at work until this stretch.

Eli Manning hurls the ball in desperation while under pressure and it lands right in Asante Samuel’s hands…and Asante drops it.

Eli Manning inexplicably escapes the grasp of two defensive players (avoiding the “in the grasp” whistle in the process) and throws a wounded duck that ends up somehow landing in the hands of David Tyree, keeping the drive alive.

Eli throws another ill-advised pass that goes RIGHT THROUGH Brandon Merriweather’s hands. It was an easy catch. The replay showed that the ball slid through his hands like it was made of ice. 

Unreal.

At this point, we all knew what was coming. We saw it ourselves against the Raiders in the 2001-02 playoffs. 

It’s like Vegas. When someone’s on a serious string of luck (holding sixteen and getting fives every time, dealer busts every time he holds on seventeen), you bet with him and go along for the ride. 

You never bet against him.   

All it took was another fortuitous slip by Ellis Hobbs and the game was over.

Even Giants fans need to admit; that was an impressive string of….we’ll call it fortuitous happenstances.

But the fact is, the game should not have been close. The Patriots looked destiny in the eye and froze up. For the first time in the Patriots “dynasty”, they choked. 

I’ve gone over the matchups. Over and over again. The Patriots have a better team. If they played ten times, they would have won eight or nine of them.

But that’s the beauty of the Super Bowl. One game decides a champion.

Congratulations to the 2007 New York Giants.  You’re the champions of the NFL and nobody will ever be able to take that away from you. 

No matter what wanna-be sports writers like myself say.

I'm SeanMC. 

SeanMC is a Columnist at Bleacher Report. His archive can be found here. You can find everything he writes, including articles for other publications, here.