Before we get into all the ramifications of Super Bowl XLII, readers of the blog need to give me a little credit here. After basically picking the final score of the college football national championship, I not only gave you the Giants beating the spread in a close game, but also getting over the hump and pulling out a victory, 28-27. The New York Giants defeated the New England Patriots 17-14 in a game that featured three lead changes in the fourth quarter after the first three quarters had largely been a defensive struggle dominated by the front four of the New York Giants.
Besides crowning the Giants the champions of Super Bowl XLII, this game had many other ramifications.
1) The 1972 Miami Dolphins are now restored as the only undefeated team in the Super Bowl era. Those Dolphins finished 17-0 and world champions, while the only thing the Patriots accomplished in the end was complete humiliation. This is an even better story considering that the 2007 Dolphins flirted with a winless season.
2) The New England Patriots and their fans are now the joke of the NFL for at least the entire next year. No matter how many games they win by how big a margin, the Patriots will remain a joke until they win another Super Bowl.
3) There is now a lot more pressure on the Boston Celtics. Boston fans, fueled by their local papers and talking heads, have been hopeful of championships in baseball, basketball and football since mid-summer. The hype reached fever pitch when the Red Sox came back from a 3-1 deficit in the ALCS to eventually advance to the World Series and sweep the Colorado Rockies. Now, all of New England will turn their attention to the Celtics. Unfortunately for New England, the Celtics, in reality, are not even one of the five best teams in the NBA and their chances of winning the title are very slim.
4) The rivalry between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees should be even more intense in 2008. New England fans have enjoyed, and started taking for granted, the past six months as the center of the sports world. If 2008 begins with a Super Bowl win for the New York Giants and culminates with the unprecedented 27th world championship for the New York Yankees, it will be a disaster for those “wicked pissahs” of the Northeast.
5) The “genius” tag in sports will come under even greater scrutiny. When previewing the college football title game between LSU and Ohio State, I mentioned how quickly a guy like Jim Tressel can lose the genius status. Tressel, whose legend was made with Ohio State’s big upset of Miami to win the title in 2001 and their consistent domination of Michigan, has seen his immortality take a tremendous hit with two consecutive blowout losses in the title game. Bill Belichick is no different. His 4th-quarter decision to forgo a 49-yard FG attempt in favor of a failed conversion on 4th-and-13 will forever remain in the “annals of football idiocy” and a hall-of-fame entry in the “psychology journal of delusional arrogance.” It should also be pointed out, gleefully, that Belichick and the Patriots failed to make adjustments and solve the defensive riddle presented to their juggernaut offense by a first-year defensive coordinator, Steve Spagnuolo.
In the end, this was a small step for man but a Giant step for mankind. The Patriots are a classless organization filled with criminals (Jabar Gaffney, Randy Moss), cheaters (Spygate), a holier-than-though quarterback who impregnates women out of wedlock (Tom Brady), a millionaire head coach with such a repulsive personality that he must pay for sex (Bill Belichick), the dirtiest players in the league (Rodney Harrison, Vince Wilfork) and players who are just plain old and annoying (Mike Vrabel, Tedy Bruschi).
The American people could not be better served today. Justice for all!
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