New York Giants: A Win for the Losers

Each second felt like an eternity. 

My New York Giants were giving the New England Patriots everything they could handle, and even better, the Giants actually had a chance to win. 

With all of the intensity and emotion I was feeling, the commercials were a welcome pause to catch my breath. 

Late in the second half, one of those commercials stood out to me.  In a Coca-Cola advertisement, parade balloons featuring Underdog and Stewie from Family Guy engaged in a city wide chase for a Coke bottle balloon. 

After battling it out, Charlie Brown sneaks out from behind a building and steals the prize, the Coke bottle. 

That’s right, the same Charlie Brown who could never win a baseball game, never got his beloved redhead girl, and never was able to even kick the football had finally won.

What I saw in Charlie Brown, I saw in my Giants. 

This was the team who I saw fail to score a touchdown in their last Super Bowl, the team that botched that final snap against the San Francisco 49ers, the team that was shutout in the playoffs two years ago and the team that broke my heart when they allowed David Akers to hit a game-winning field goal in last year’s playoffs.

No one had taken on that Charlie Brown role more than Eli Manning.  He was the face of the Giants and everyone, including a great number of the team’s own fans and one outspoken running back, expected him to fail. 

Heck, Manning even looked like the lovable loser with the black and yellow zigzag shirt.

However, on a Saturday night in late December, Eli and the Giants did not want to be the loser anymore. 

They saw a perfect team across the sidelines, and after 60 minutes of back-and-forth football, they saw themselves, as equals. 

When the playoffs began, the Giants showed the nation what they saw.  However, even after a dominant win in Tampa Bay and two epic drama filled victories in Dallas and Green Bay, the world still expected them to fail.

For the Giants, it didn’t matter what the world thought.  They knew they were no longer the losers, no longer the team that collapsed down the stretch every season and no longer the source of my annual broken heart. 

So when Eli Manning took that final kneel and the Giants bench exploded in celebration, why was anyone surprised? 

This was the best team in football, and they knew it. 

No matter how many times they failed and how many people expected them to fail, they never stopped trying.  In the end, they finally got their prize. 

Just like Charlie Brown.