Saturday, February 23, 2008

Oh yeah, the Giants Won the Super Bowl!

It's February 24th, and I still can't believe the Giants won the Super Bowl. This is also the first time I've updated the blog in 2008, so I officially suck as a blogger. I appreciate the comments and kicks in the ass to update. I've missed you too, and I've really been derelict in doling out epiphanies, especially since I promised them on a Daily Basis. So here's just a little one....

Holy shit, the Giants won the Super Bowl. Their run to Glendale and victory over the 18-0 New England Patriots was the nicest surprise of 2007-2008. We figured, our team is young. Eli hasn't clicked yet. Our Super Bowl is 2-3 years away. Then we played the Patriots in the last game of the season and lost, 38-35, by only three points.

That meant we could beat them. Then we beat Tampa Bay in the first round of the playoffs. That's an improvement over last year right there. Then we beat fucking Dallas and make Terrell Owens cry. Giants fans are like, "Whoa. What the fuck is going on here?" This is also the 9th Road Win in a row.

Next we're playing the Packers, led by that old Geezer, Brett Favre, and we're starting to think, "Hey, you know, we can beat these assholes." In minus-4-degree weather I'm putting my money on the nubile young quarterback from New York, not on the 40+ brittle, beat-up senior citizen from Green Bay.

Apparently, Eli never got the memo that wearing gloves would screw up his ability to pass or drive the ball down the field. He missed the script where he got outplayed, outshown and beat by the grisled veteran, Favre. It was, after all, Brett's last chance to make the Super Bowl. This was supposed to be Brett's Year.

Or not. We beat the Packers. Holy shit we beat the Packers! Really beat them! With Tynes' field goal in overtime. In dramatic fashion. After missing two previous attempts, he boots a frozen football that in those temperatures must have felt like a lead balloon. Tynes' foot was totally black and blue after the game. He booted that bitch!

Wait a minute. What the fuck? We actually BEAT the Packers??? You mean we're going to the...no, wait. No wait.

No way, are you kidding me? The New York Giants are going to the motherfucken Super Bowl. We are not! Holy shit. We are going to the Super Bowl. These Giants are NFC Champs! Holy shit! What the fuck? This wasn't supposed to happen this year. This is great! This is fantastic!

Holy shit!

Against the Patriots, led by Mr. G.Q., Tom Brady. 18-0, on the verge of making history with a Perfect 19-0 Season. In the Giants' corner we have dorky baby brother Eli, with the childlike, aw shucks, Huckleberry Finn face.

Only by this time, I'm thinking, we can win this bitch. We have now had 10 road victories. In the last game of the regular season, we lost to these assholes by only 3 points. That means we can score on em...score high...and we can beat them.

In the playoffs, we beat every team that had beaten us in the regular season. And at the Super Bowl, the Giants would be the visiting team. We can beat these Beantown mother fuckers. 19-0 tee shirts and commemorative magazines my balls! No, no, no. I'm talking eleven consecutive road wins. We can win this.

The game starts, and the Giants D beats the living shit out of Brady. The O hangs onto the ball in the first period for more than ten minutes, breaking a Super Bowl record, and then scores a field goal at the end of the drive. At the time we bitched that it was only a field goal. But we had kept the Patriots from at least 2 driving opportunities, had we gone 3rd and out, and oh yeah, we won the Super Bowl by 3 points. Even though the Pats came out with a touchdown on their drive, that field goal right there won the game.

The difference between this game and the last game was that the Giants D showed up and dealt a brutal relentless beatdown on Brady. They threw him off his rhythm and held him to his lowest score all season. And once again, as he did throughout the playoffs, Eli played mistake-free ball. He didn't give up interceptions. Eli's arm, the one vaunted to be better-than-Peyton's, showed up. To whit, that gorgeous slow motion spiral to Plax in the end zone to win the game. But I've gotten ahead of myself.

The 2nd and 3rd quarters were a chess match. Each team keeping the other from scoring. Then just as the 4th quarter got under way, a couple of friends sitting in the Giants family member section at the Super Bowl, enlisted the aid of one team member's father, in finding a discrete place to release some of the ashes of Bob in Annapolis, a season-ticket holder, fixture at Giants training camp and legend to the members of BigBlueInteractive.com, who had died unexpectedly, early in the season, of complications following back surgery.

As Bob's ashes whirled around the edges of the field, magic started to happen. David Tyree catches his first touch done pass of the season. Brady, that prick, drives down the field and gets another touch down.

Eli has less than 3 minutes to drive down the field and get a touch down. No fucking way. Yeah, right, but thing is, Eli has always had this weird ability to go bonzai in the final 2+ minutes and come back to win games. Our young kid sticks around for the whole game. I look at my brother and say, "He can do this."

We are standing, pacing forwards and backwards in front of the sofa as Eli drives the Giants down the field. We're kind of swaying to and fro like we've just drunk 12 beers, and we're 50th on line for the Porta John.

Then Eli miraculously escapes that sack attempt and launches that crazy pass to Tyree, who with a Patriot hanging off of him, catches the ball with his fucking helmet! What the fuck was that??? And then comes that magnificent 13-yard pass to Plax.

There are still 35 seconds left. I'm not allowed to get happy until we stop Brady on this last campaign. BOOOOOM, Alford slaughters Brady. Well, why shouldn't he be allowed to get a good pop in? Rookies need to learn too. "Here, this is how to clobber a star quarterback. Isn't it fun?"

Patriots go for it on 4th down and blow it. One second left. Ball in Giants' possession. No we haven't won yet. What? What the fuck is Belichek doing? He's shaking Coughlin's hand and running off the field with one second on the clock? One last snap, Eli kneels.

Super Bowl Won. Not only the biggest upset in Super Bowl history, but also the Best Play in Super Bowl History. Best Super Bowl Game ever.

Unfuckingbelievable.