Three reasons the Giants beat the Patriots in Super Bowl XLII

In case you didn’t get to read it last time, I wrote a similar analysis when the Giants beat the Cowboys on January 13. So, think of this more like “part 2.”

Every game has its moments. Every game has a winner. The Dallas Cowboys and the New York Giants both had their moments, but it was the G-Men who emerged the winners. Here’s why:

1. The Giants Defensive line: I won’t go so far to say the game was absolutely won by the New York front four, but if they gave a “most valuable unit” award for this game, those guys in the trenches would win it running away. All season long, Tom Brady kept his jersey squeaky clean, due in large part to the front five’s excellent pass protection. When was the last time Brady had to scramble out of the pocket? I truly believe, after the season he’s had in the pocket, Brady may have forgotten how to gain yards with his legs. No, I don’t mean running for yards, but buying time if the pocket breaks down. But you can’t give enough credit for how Michael Strahan, Osi Umenyiora, Justin Tuck and Co. performed. Though, I’m pretty pissed off that not too many people are crediting former Penn State standout Jay Alford for his 10-yard sack of Brady on the last drive. Even those anti-Penn State/Big Ten assholes at CBS mentioned Alford, go figure.

2. Field Position: Jeff Feagles dropped two punts inside the New England 20-yard line, and consistently bombed deep ones all night. The Patriots were able to return only one punt for 15 yards. Imagine if Tom Brady’s team had been able to work from outside the shadow of its own goal posts? It might have been a completely different game if the Patriots didn’t have to drive 85-90 yards each time they had the ball. On the other hand, since the Patriots failed to move the ball as well as they would’ve liked, they frequently played right back into the Giants hands. New York fielded every punt return outside of its own 20.

3. The Giants Offensive line: This isn’t so much about the offensive line’s pass protection, as Eli Manning was sacked a few times. This is more about the fact that the New York front five often gave Manning *just enough time to get rid of the ball. They never gave up on the play, and did something the Patriots line couldn’t do. The Giants line gave Manning the confidence to make the throws he had to, without the constant worry of being knocked senseless each time he released the ball. I do have to give Manning a lot of credit though, as he escaped pressure plenty of times, highlighted by that final drive. Manning was surely going to get sacked by three Patriots, but miraculously twisted his way free to complete the most impressive overall play of his career. If the offensive line is No. 3 on this list, put Manning at No. 3a.

I hope this dabble into the NFL wasn’t too painful for the readers. I’ll try to do better next time.

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Wade Phillips pulls a "Leinart"

Sorry for so much NFL stuff lately. I'm not a recruiting wiz, and this is the only football actually being played. This actually has something to do with college football, and you'll find out why right... now.

Said Matt Leinart following the 2006 Rose Bowl loss to Texas: "I still think we're a better football team. They just made the plays in the end."

Said Wade Phillips following the 2008 Divisional Playoff Game loss to the Giants: "Very disappointing ending to a very good year. After watching the tape, I feel like the best team lost the game, we outplayed them and we lost. Some of that goes to the coach I accept that."

Right, so according to Leinart and Phillips, wins and losses don't dictate how good a team is? If a team can only be the "better team" for 59 minutes, they're not the better team. But that's not even my real point here. I don't know if he was in the same stadium as the Cowboys and Giants. I swear I was watching Fox5 Sunday, because he saw a completely different game. The Cowboys were hardly the better team Sunday, and definately did not "outplay them." If a team outplays the other, then that's called WINNING. However, if you look up that word in the Phillips & Leinart Dictionary, it's spelled "W-H-I-N-I-N-G."

I hate losing, and will be the first to start bitching about what my team did to lose, or the other team did to win. But, I'm never one for moral victories. And in this case, a moral victory should be considered pathetic. In this case, the term moral victory should never even come up. I know, Phillips never said that, but he came accross as if he wanted sympathy for his team (not himself), acting like they should get credit for playing like crap for three hours. The only time a team should be praised for playing a hell of a game, and come up short, is if that team is as pathetic as the Miami Dolphins or the Stanford Cardinal. Oh wait, even Stanford beat USC.

But in Phillips' case, it wasn't even like his team played a better game than the Giants. What I saw from the Giants was a team playing as such, with a heart bigger than their long list of injured players. I saw a Giants team that played as if they wanted to win, and they did just that. What I saw from Dallas was a team that thought they could cruise to a win, because they "should" win that game. I saw a Dallas team that had its players bickering and calling each other out after each play, and a team that felt "well, the other team can't hang on forever, we'll just wait for them to give up." The other team didn't. Unless that other team was Dallas.

I promise I'll have something juicy on college football later today.

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Three reasons the Giants beat the Cowboys

Every game has its moments. Every game has a winner. The Dallas Cowboys and the New York Giants both had their moments, but it was the G-Men who emerged the winners. Here’s why:

1. Penalties: The Giants kept their performance generally mistake-free, but it was the Cowboys who made the costly errors. Eleven penalties for 84 lost yards were too much to overcome, compared to the Giants’ three flags. But it wasn’t so much how many penalties the Cowboys committed, it was how and when they occurred. How many times did the Dallas line jump its own snap? In my train of thought, a team could commit 20 penalties and still win. But if a team commits one penalty at the worst possible time—such as the personal foul facemask on the Giants’ touchdown drive before halftime, the intentional grounding late in the fourth, or the false start on Dallas’ final drive—the game could go south quickly.

2. The kicking game: Specifically, the Giants return game gave New York the field position battle, by a long shot. On four kickoff returns, the Giants averaged 26.5 yards per return, with a long of 45 by Hixon. Compare that to the Cowboys’ 22 yards per kickoff return, with a long of 29. Then, and possibly most important in last night’s game, was McQuarters’ 25-yard punt return to set up the New York score with 1:08 left in the third quarter. The Cowboys returned two punts for a total of eight yards.

3. The new-and-improved, Eli Manning: No, it wasn’t his second game in a row without an interception. It wasn’t his 12 for 18 completions with two touchdowns. It was his leadership abilities, facing a seven-point hole with 47 seconds left before the half, on his own 29 yard line. Within two plays, the Giants moved into Cowboy territory, later followed up by completions of 11, 19 and a touchdown pass for four yards with 11 seconds left. Manning grew up on that drive, and gave his team new life going into the locker room. Depending on how the trip to Green Bay goes, that may be put into “The Drive” folder of memories.

I hope my dabble into the NFL wasn’t too painful for the readers. I’ll try to be better next time.

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