There is only one question heading into Sunday's Super Bowl (4:30 Mountain, FOX): do the 12-6 New York Giants have a chance against the 18-0 New England Patriots?
The statistical evidence is pretty overwhelming: they probably don't. Don't believe me? Check out ESPN.com's invaluable NFL stats for yourself. Try finding a major category where the Giants finished ahead of the Patriots.
Good luck. The Patriots hold the edge in offense, points scored, defense, points allowed, passing offense, passing defense, average kickoff return yardage, average punt return yardage, and average yards allowed on kick and punt returns.
That leaves the Giants with an edge in rushing (134.3 yards per game to New England's 115.6) and a microscopic edge in rushing defense (97.7 yards allowed to 98.3), though they held a bigger lead in yards allowed per carry.
This leaves the upset-minded prognosticator searching for more esoteric justification. Perhaps the Giants want it more? Not bloody likely, considering New England's single-minded focus after the twin disasters of blowing last year's AFC Championship Game and being caught cheating in this season's opener.
Do the Giants have more momentum? That's another ridiculous idea. New York has played well in five straight games; the Patriots have won their last eighteen. Plus the Giants barely beat the Packers in their last game, a game Green Bay seemed desperate to lose.
But you can't fault a team when they win the NFC Championship on the road, especially on the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field. Indeed, I believe the Giants have had a season they can be proud of. But I also believe New England was the highest-scoring team in NFL history this year. Sports history teaches us that every underdog has a chance. Unfortunately for New York, it also teaches us that legendary teams usually steamroll their opponents in the Super Bowl. My pick: New England 40, New York 21.
A side note: I'm so giddy about the 1972 Dolphins fading into the history of the forgotten, I can hardly contain myself. In fact, I'm even happy about the Pats' cheating scandal now. Think about it: not only will the Dolphins fade off into the sunset, they'll lose their spotlight to a team that everyone knows cheated. The '72 Dolphins, whose combination of arrogance and bitterness puts them in the same likeability stratosphere as Mike Huckabee, won't even lose their place fairly. But in a few years, no one's really going to care that the Patriots had an aggresive approach to capturing game film. To me, the scenario that has played out is even cooler than some great team coming along and wiping Miami from the record books by winning each of its games by fifty points.
4 comments:
A cogent prediction, but there is also another crucial category in which the Patriots beat the Giants hands-down: coaching. When it comes to big games, who do you want patrolling your sidelines? The personality-less but genius Bill Bellichick, or the uptight, red and raw-faced Tom Coughlin? I think Bill's game plan and preparations will be far and away superior to Coughlin's, and the difference will be noticeable.
But I agree that Giants have had a strong season and a late-season run to be proud of. But with the entitled, overhyped New York fan base, at most it has bought Eli and Coughlin another year of teetering at the precipice of working somewhere else.
I take Pats 34-24, with the Giants scoring a touchdown in garbage time to bring it within 10.
And I share your glee about the '72 Dolphins. Now when they complain about the Patriots' "cheating,' they look even more like the whiny middle-aged has-beens they have been for the last 20 years. And I am not just talking about Don Shula.
That's funny...I thought of New York's last score in my prediction as a garbage-time touchdown, too.
You're right-Belichick gives the Patriots an edge over everybody and a huge edge over most. Coughlin puts the Pats in the "huge edge" category, I think, though he seems to do much better as an underdog in the playoffs, with Jax and now New York, than he does as the favorite.
Oh, yeah, it won't be Week 8 before Giants fans start calling for Eli's head...and that might hold true even if New York does win the Super Bowl.
There is no way that Bellichick and Brady are going to win 18 games and then lose in the Super Bowl. I think the score will probably be a little closer to John's prediction.
However, if the Giants did win the game, would you consider it the biggest upset in NFL history?
Probably, but that depends on what you mean. I mean the biggest upset in NFL history is what, Super Bowl III? I'd consider a Giants win more surprising than that, but I'm not sure anyone else would credit it with the same historical significance. So yes and no. Most notable Super Bowl upsets of recent vintage, like Denver over Green Bay or New England over St. Louis, sort of just showed that the favorite was a little overrated to begin with. But I don't think the 18-0 Pats are overrated in the same way. Honestly, the NFL seems a little shorter on big upsets than other sports leagues to me, it seems, but I guess No. 6 Pittsburgh over No. 1 Indy wasn't too long ago.
Obviously, the whole story changes if something really weird happens, like Brady is knocked out in the first quarter on a dirty play...
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