2007-2008 Super Bowl Champions

An extended commentary on Johan Santana and the Mets vastly enhanced prospects for 2008 is forthcoming. In Omar We Trust.

But it's necessary first for us to pay homage to the extraordinary Super Bowl Champion New York Giants. Quite honestly I wasn't sure when I was ever going to say that. The Super Bowl Champion New York Giants.


I've written a few times in this space about the Giants and Eli Manning, Spagnuolo's D and the sense I had after they beat the Cowboys that they had nothing else to prove to me. I'm devoted to no sports team more than I am to the Mets, but this is the greatest season I've ever watched. I've been following the Giants, too, since I was five years old. I cried during the waning moments of Super Bowl XXXV, have the 41-0 win over the Vikings on tape, remember the brutal loss in 2003 (the '02 season) to the 49ers, was there when Danny Kanell and co. blew it in '97, and have watched the end of the last two seasons with the same disgust as every die-hard Giants fan. In short, the Mets play for only six months every year. I depend on the Giants to get me through at least 4 of those off-months, and anticipate the first week in September with the same excitement (well, almost) as the first week in April.

This has to be considered one of the greatest Super Bowls ever, one of the greatest Super Bowl upsets ever, one of the greatest upsets - period - ever, and one of the greatest seasons in NFL history. For the Giants, this was the true perfect season.

Not measured in an undefeated record, all-time scoring marks, or having a supermodel-dating quarterback who threw 50 touchdown passes in the regular season. Not measured by the genius of a coach going for a record-tying fourth Super Bowl with an unmatched year of icing on the cake.

No, the 2007-2008 Giants, the little team that could, told they couldn't by the sports pundits, kept alive by the right arm of the quintessential little brother, the Mama's boy who finally found himself, treated their fans to a roller-coaster month of victories against football's best. Over the Cowboys, their playboy quarterback, and their 12 pro-bowlers in Dallas. Over the legendary Brett Favre against the legendary Packers in legendary Lambeau Field in conditions that could be described as nothing less than epic and legendary. Over the New England Patriots, inevitable champions, penciled in at 19-0 since mid-October. 18-1.

You can't help but feel good for Eli Manning

The Giants can't be seen as anything short of a team of destiny. A team that had to fight to even make the playoffs, who lost several big games in the regular season, becomes just the second team in NFL history to win a Super Bowl without having played a home playoff game. (The Steelers set the standard two years ago) This is a team that went just 10-6 in the regular season, but moved past all the uncertainty, began to believe in itself at the right time, and did its thing with grit, guts, moxie, and determination. They stayed in every playoff game - in each they trailed at some point in the second half, but always were within striking distance - and then were carried over the top in the end by the right combination of good luck and outstanding individual and group performances.

When I was younger, I would look at the lines in the paper, having no clue what they represented, and root for the underdog because it always sounded cooler than "favorite." Since I've been a fan, the Mets and Giants have certainly been "underdogs" quite frequently. But these games, the climax of this season, turned into the kind of thing I'll tell my kids about. As I've grown up, I've developed a stronger and stronger appreciation for those times when I can tell I'm witnessing history. This season, culminating in a dramatic Super Bowl upset of an undefeated team, the perpetual underdogs wrote a mythic underdog story. That catch by David Tyree, after Eli Manning somehow didn't get sacked. This whole thing would make a great movie.

David Tyree celebrated his touchdown score, then made one of the great plays in Super Bowl history

It's funny because this game was kind of like the win that started this entire Patriots dynasty, or whatever you want to call it. In Super Bowl XXXVI, no one gave the Pats a chance, with their rookie quarterback and team of nobody's. The Rams were 14 point favorites - a bigger spread, even, than last night's (the Pats were favored by 12). In Super Bowl XLII, the "all-Joes," in the words of Antonio Pierce, prevailed in another sensational ending to another awesome game. Once again, David won. But this game is even bigger just for the gravity of the circumstances going in. Undefeated vs. 10-6. Victory against the most impossible odds.

It's essential that we appreciate these moments, as sports fans or even as casual observers. There are so many more underdogs than favorites in life, much more rugged scrappiness than so-called perfection from person to person. I would appreciate nothing if I were a Patriots fan today. Sorry, New England, I know this sucks. These circumstances notwithstanding, however, you just have to feel good for the Giants right now. The rag tag bunch with the good guy QB and the defense that was literally dropping to the ground in exhaustion in the 4th quarter from trying to stop the Patriots' offensive juggernaut all night are champions this morning. They pulled it off, and if that doesn't speak to the best feelings and values in most of us, I don't know what does.

There will be a parade for the ages in New York City tomorrow. The Super Bowl Champions will celebrate on Super Tuesday, so I'll be up here trying to get out the vote for Barack Obama, but I'm sure it's going to be just as epic, just as legendary, as the end to this Giants season. Soak it up, fellow Giants fans. We've just witnessed a great run to end maybe the greatest year in our team's history. Our season just came.

(Pictures courtesy giants.com, citizen.co.za, newsday.com. Video courtesy bttwtopteam.com)