When you write or, in our case, pretend to write about sports, you feel compelled to predict games. But there's no upside in it. If you're right, nobody cares. If you're wrong, you suck and still nobody cares. It only gets worse when the pick involved your favorite team.
(The worst, however, is when you root for your picks instead of being a fan. That's how you end up rooting for the Saints when you know the Giants have no chance if the road ahead goes through the Super Dome. Like a bell and an angel, every time you root for a pick, a little part of your sports soul dies. Speaking of dying souls, how does Gregg Williams have Malcolm Jenkins in press/trail coverage on Vernon Davis when his team is up 3 with less than 2 minutes to play against a team on their own 33 and desperate for a big play?)
Like last week when picked Green Bay. It's not like we didn't think they had a chance. In fact, we thought they had a great chance, but we just couldn't commit. Maybe it just seemed too easy. Everyone loved the underdog. Loved the pass rush, the match-ups. And the hot streak. They were the 2007 Redux. No, they were the 2010 Packers (Rodgers 2010: 65% completions, 3,922 yards, 28/11 TD/INT. Eli 2011: 61% completions, 4,933 yards, 29/16 TD/INT. Just saying.) Everyone seemed to forget that this was the Giants. A team with a habit of wilting in the face of high expectations. With fans that endured the Fassel era of alternating terrible seasons with winning seasons (against last place schedules) and various Coughlin-lead letdowns. The ups and downs of this season made us question whether we'd become bipolar. Check out our diary entries from some of the more important games this season:
10/9/11: Why wouldn't they lose to the Seahawks? When they miss the playoffs and Tom is selling magazines at a rest stop, he'll look back at this loss as the reason. Also, this Cruz guy stinks!! He'll never make enough plays for us to get over the loss of Steve Smith.
11/6/11: Holy shit, they beat the Pats!! 6-3!!! Suck it Larry Legend!! THE GIANTS ARE THE GREATEST TEAM IN THE HISTORY OF PROFESSIONAL ATHLETICS!! No chance they don't win the division now, they'll probably even get the two-seed after we beat San Fran and then [redacted as repetitious. 12 pages] We feel so energized!! The house is already spotless. Maybe we should bake some pies.
12/4/11: 4 losses in a row. How is that even possible? Who cares it they "almost" beat the Pack. This isn't 2007. The Pack is just too good, they'll roll to a repeat. So sad. Can't believe we ate all those pies.
12/11/11: JPP!!! Only thing left to do is take care of business. Bet we could totally do 1,000 push-ups.
12/18/11: Rex. Grossman. We hope our tears don't stain the page. Only Dashboard knows how we feel. Still sore from those push-ups last week.
12/24/11: They're not booing, they're saying CRUUUUUUUUUUUZE!!! Wouldn't trade this guy for anyone. Calvin, who? J-E-T-S Suck, Suck, Suck!! That's why it's called GIANTS stadium.
1/8/12: 24-2. WTF? Is the defense really going to play this well? Or is Matt Ryan just that big of a playoff choker? Is this really happening again or is there a stinker lurking?
So maybe we picked Green Bay to manage our own expectations, as a mode of self-preservation to avoid getting hurt. After a roller-coaster of a season could anyone blame us. But, today, we're happy to say that we are officially in. Maybe we're late to the party but, whatever. Our heart is theirs to fill or burst. To be ark or bury. Or wear as jewelry. Whichever they prefer.
It seems that football has moved away with the old paradigms like "defense wins championships" or "home field advantage." But, instead of the playoffs being a validation of the passing-centric version of the game we saw during the regular season, its reminded us that, evidence continues to accumulate to support the "Hot Team Theory." The bulk of the regular season no longer matters, overall records are shit. Home field is for losers. The only thing that matters now if which team is playing the best when it counts - on both sides of the ball. Since 2005, for as many times as the best regular season team won the Super Bowl ('09 Saints) there were more that just got hot at the right time ('05 Steelers, 07 Giants, '10 Packers). And right now, the Giants look like that kind of team.
By itself that's great. But what's even more exciting is that this version of the Giants is now playing for a legacy, a chance to build a bridge back to the Parcells' years, the "Golden Age of Giants Football." It's fitting that to establish that connection, they'll need to navigate some pretty significant touchstones of Giant playoff history.
From 1985 to 1990, the Giants were one of the NFL's most dominant teams, wining two Super Bowls in five seasons. While the 1986 team was dominant (a 14-2 record, a ridiculous defense and a destruction of the Broncos in the Super Bowl) its the 1990 team that feels more special. Lead by the slow but effective running of (the non-murderous) O.J. Anderson (from whom we inexplicably have a signed football), a lesser version of LT and Jeff Hostetlar, a back-up quarterback who despite the win, really wasn't that good, it was a team that seemed to triumph more on toughness and coaching, than sheer talent.
Everyone remembers the Super Bowl victory, including the legendary ball-control game plan that helped slow-down the previously unstoppable K-Gun (and launch the head-coaching career of Bill Belichick), the epic first down catch were Mark Ingram broke five tackles to gain 14 yards and, of course, "wide-right." But that epic run started at Candlestick Park. The site of one of our earliest football memories.
We were at our parents' old, rented house, the bi-level with the sandy front lawn and the 70's style brown carpeting still going strong in 1991, in the dining room, trying to watch the game while maintaining some sense of respect for the dinner in front of us (it might have been our sister's birthday). But our sense of decorum left abruptly when Matt Bahr sailed his 5th field goal though the uprights sending both New York back to the Super Bowl (with a little help from a hit by Leonard Marshall that ended Joe Montana's 49er career) and us running around the room screaming until we got yelled at. Two weeks later, we'd do it all again, this time thanks to a missed field goal. It was the first time, we can remember being that excited by a sporting event since then, we've been hooked on the G-Men. So, now as the Giants go back to San Fran, we're feeling like a kid again. Hoping for a chance to run around the house screaming.
(San Fran is also the site of the worst Giants loss we can remember, the time they blew a 24-point lead to Jeff Garcia and T.O. and ended the game with a bunch of fat guys falling all over themselves like last call at the OCB. It was a loss so bad that we ended up yelling at our brother for no good reason. But we won't get into that one today. Or ever. Hopefully.)
There are parallels to 1990 are plentiful. The NFC Title Game is a rematch of a game in which the Giants came up short. Both teams are trying to get back to the Super Bowl after three somewhat disappointing seasons. They both feature a quarterback is playing the best football of his career. And a coach trying to cement his legacy. And there are certainly more if you dig a little deeper.
All it takes is two more wins. Two more wins and they get a chance to avenge the humiliation of 2000 or validate the upset of the Patriots in 2007. Two more wins and Coughlin's resume starts to look a lot like a Hall of Famer (especially when you consider what he did with an expansion-era Jacksonville team). Two more wins and Eli passes Peyton and starts to look Canon-worthy himself (only Jim Plunkett has two rings and isn't in the Hall of Fame but his wins came after taking over mid-season for an injured starter). Two more wins and they become a team we'll talk about decades from now.
They have a chance to be special. Here's hoping they take advantage.
No comments:
Post a Comment