For the second time in five years the New York Giants are celebrating an improbable Super Bowl title. Though throughout both of those playoff runs (which followed mediocre regular seasons) the Giants were blessed with incredible luck, they also played great. Tom Coughlin seems to have mellowed as a coach. And Eli Manning has blossomed into an incredible quarterback. In a close game dominated by defense one of the teams was going to make the one play that would win the Super Bowl. That play was Manning's perfect throw, over two defenders right into the arms of Mario Manningham who deftly got his feet in bounds for the reception that sprung the Giants to the winning points.
An unintended consequence of that was that Bill Belichick used a coach's challenge (he had to) and when he lost it (the correct call), the Patriots had one fewer timeout with which to stop the clock.
The Sit-Down Touchdown
When Ahmad Bradshaw tumbled into the endzone to give the Giants a 21-17 lead, he actually made a big mistake. He should have taken a knee, as he was being implored to do by Eli Manning, at the 1-yard line, and killed more time. Look at it like a math problem: what are the chances of Tynes missing a 20-yard field goal there? Maybe 5%. What are the chances of Brady bringing them back down the field for a touchdown with a minute to go? I've gotta think they are better than that.
One thing we should all do is take a list of which media members go out on a limb today and say yes Bradshaw should have scored the touchdown. There will be few. But one day, in a similar circumstance, a player will take a knee and his team will lose because the kicker misses the field goal. On that day, every single media member will criticize the strategy.
I guess the Sit-Down Touchdown gets to joined The Immaculate Reception and the Helmet Catch as uniquely named plays.
The Safety
It is so rare to see Tom Brady make mistake like this. But it was clearly the correct call by the referee. Brady was under pressure, he threw the ball where no receiver had a reasonable chance of catching it, and he was definitely in the pocket.
No Mo
After the Giants took a 9-0 lead, by totally dominating the game, not even letting the Patriots have the ball, I guess you could say momentum was on their side. Then the Pats defense stiffened, and finally late in the first half they Pats scored to make it 10-9. Then, using the advantage gained when they deferred, the Patriots scored again and led 17-9. Surely, momentum had turned. But the Patriots never scored again, and you know the rest. I bring this up, as always to illustrate my main thesis in life. There is no such thing as momentum in sports. Players win games by making plays. There is no invisible snowball rolling down a hill helping the team that's in front stay in front.
Picture of the Week
Maybe they should call it the Shit-Down Touchdown, because it looks like Ahmad Bradshaw is about to drop a deuce.
A Brief Rant About the Redskins
In the last 6 years the Redskins have played the eventual Super Bowl champion every single year, and they actually haven't done too badly. In fact, over the last 12 years, the Redskins are 6-4 against the team that went on to win the Super Bowl, including 2-0 vs. the Giants this year.
We're All Incredibly Lucky
As much as the Giants are lucky, we as football fans have gotten even luckier. Of the 20 Super Bowls played in the 80s and 90s only two were really good games (the second 49ers-Bengals and Giants-Bills). Of the 13 Super Bowls played in this millennium, 5 are classics (Rams-Titans, Patriots-Rams, Giants-Patriots I, Steelers-Cardinals and Giants-Patriots II), 5 others were good games (Patriots-Panthers, Patriots-Eagles, Steelers-Seahawks, Saints-Colts and Packers-Steelers) and only 3 sucked (Ravens-Giants, ExpensiveCornPrices-Raiders and Colts-Bears). I remember in the 80s they did the Bud Bowl just to keep people interested in the game. Now everyone is glued the entire time. I hope it never ends.
200 Million Morons
The numbers are in and Super Bowl XLVI set a record with 111.3 million viewers. With roughly 312 million people in the country, that means 200 million people didn't watch. I'll grant you 30 million elderly, 20 million kids, incapable of watching. But that leaves 150 million didn't watch. Can these numbers be accurate? What were these people doing?
Good post.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the Colts-Bears Superbowl was THAT bad. It certianly is not in the class of the other two you mentioned
The Colts-Bears game was close enough, but I don't think we ever thought the Bears would win. And it was also a rainy night and a sloppy game.
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