Today, for the fourth time in my life, I'm going to watch my Giants play in a Super Bowl. Despite our large underdog role in this game, I must say it's pretty cool. Of course, I'm hoping this game turns out more like our first two Super Bowl appearances and less like our most recent one - a game I'm not even sure ever really happened. And I suppose, one way or another, fairly soon, that we shall see.
Here's a couple of thoughts:
I'm not a big fan of the two week break prior to the game. In general I'm not a fan of it, but I think specifically in this situation this season it helps slow our momentum a little and favors the Patriots. And frankly they don't need the help.
The game kicks off shortly after midnight here in Europe, and so this will be my third Super Bowl to watch more or less in the middle of the night. Something tells me I'll be more awake this time...
One difference this year is that I've been more or less avoiding all the press of the game, kind of like I did in the playoffs. I just want to watch the game. Unfortunately the Big Game comes with a severe amount of hype. In years past, when the Giants were involved, I would dive in, watching too much TV about it, and reading every heartwarming story about the third string quarterbacks favorite stuffed animal growing up. But not this time. I don't care about any of that, nor about the "expert analysis" (not one expert picked the G-men in the Cowboy or Packer game), nor about Brady's walking boot - not any of it. Just play it, I say. The game will be enough. Should be enough.
I'm determined not to have a repeat performance of my last Giant's Super Bowl viewing experience. That has nothing to do with the actual game, mostly just my response to it. Like the playoffs, I'm going in even keeled; I will be concentrating and rooting but not living and dying on every play. Of course I'll get excited and pissed, but hopefully on a much lower scale. For one thing, we're not supposed to win this game, and I've been watching the Pats all year - that team is good make no mistake. But because they're so good, and because of all the expectations, etc., there is much less pressure on the Giants. And should things get 'predictable', and we get blown out, we get blown out - I'll do my best to shake it off and concentrate how effing awesome it was to beat up on "America's Team" in the divisional round. (That was some good shit right there....ahhhh) (Also, we'll see if I actually old to this blase' philosophy as the game nears - I mean Christ it's the Super Bowl with my boys!)
The Giants played their first Super Bowl in 1987 (following the '86 season), and I remember little of it. I remember MCconkey and Bavaro, LT of course, and Simms playing a hell of a game. We were actually down in that game at one point (I think at the half even), but to my eleven-year-old mind the outcome never seemed in doubt. OF COURSE the Giants would win. They were my team.
In 1987 Phil Simms made a young me very happy
The second Super Bowl, in 1991 (following the '90 season), was awesome, over the hapless (but also high scoring and heavily favored - hmmm) Bills, in a close but great game. I was a sophomore in high school - having a rough year at that - and my parents had a Super Bowl party at the house. I remember being on all fours in front of the TV for most of the fourth quarter, crawling around between each play as if imitating a nervous, pacing mountain lion at a zoo. When our beloved "Wide Right" happened, it was sheer pandemonium, with high fives and hugs all around. Simply awesome, and clearly the best Super Bowl I have ever experienced by far. (Could today top it? Possibly - and just another reason I'll be excited to get to watching.)
Side Note: This was the best Super Bowl for me, but was it the best game ever? Turns out no. It was the second best. The game before, when the Giants went to San Francisco for the NFC Championship and upset the Montana 'Niners, was the best. My dad and I joined a group of New York fans at a sports bar in La Costa, and watched there. The game was back and forth, with Montana being knocked out late by Leonard Marhall. The Niners were up, and seemingly going to go on to win, but then Roger Craig fumbled late, and none other than LT came up with the ball. I remember him doing his high-knee dance around the 50 yard line with the ball, and Madden saying "Great Players make Big Plays in Big Game" for what I remember being the first time (even though that phrase has been uttered a billion times by now). Then "Hoss" (subbing in for Phil Simms and his broken leg) marched us down the field and Matt Bahr kicked the game winning field goal. Our little posse of Giants fans went apeshit, right there in that California bar dominated by Niner Fans. It was the greatest football moment of my life - I'm convinced - just barely edging out the Super Bowl victory shortly thereafter. It just seemed the Niners had the game, things were over, and then suddenly we had it. I get chills just thinking about it.)
Wide Right! Wide Right! Sweet, sweet Jesus - the kick is wide right....
Things turned sour for the third Giants Super Bowl, shortly after the Millenium in 2001. I was a third year medical student, and honestly I barely remember the game. I had a huge party at my house, and we rented a big screen TV for the living room. We crammed about 45 people in that small place, and I think it was by maybe the second quarter I had stopped talking to everybody. I just sat there, arms crossed, staring at the TV - I was pissed. Not my finest hosting moment and kind of embarrassing actually. After it was all over I had to take a good look in the mirror and seriously reevaluate how I watched Giants football. Since then, I'm much better. Really. I only remember a few salient points about the game. I hated those Ravens, a team of convicts led by Ray Lewis who led the league in tackles and murders for the season. He came out and did his steroid-crack-murder dance which I simply loathed. The game was fairly close early, and Jesse Armstead picked off a pass and returned it for a touchdown only to have the play nullified by a defensive holding call against one of our defensive tackles (a penalty I've never seen by the way). The call was utter crap, a questionable penalty in theory at best, and one that didn't even happen at all in reality (the replays showed nothing, absolutely nothing. It was the worst call in the history of the NFL and I will not argue about this.) Anyway, that play set the tone, and for three or four hours I had to watch Trent Dilfer lead a team to victory, Ray Lewis do his shitty dance, and Jason Sehorn look like the only white cornerback in the NFL, which he was. On top of that, I lost our football pool because of that game. It was a dark, dark time.
"But I play football well, so killing people is OK for me."
(Side Note: Ah, Jason Sehorn. Before his knee first knee injury, he was relatively unknown and he was awesome. He was the only white corner in the NFL at the time. Now there are none. He was fast as hell, and I remember going to a game at Texas Stadium late in the season in 1997 while visiting my parents - the Cowboys were already out of it - and he shut down Michael Irvin. He was flying around the field, he played physical, he was awesome, like he had been all season. And he was still under the radar. My dad and I were pumped on him.
The next year he hurt his knee in a preseason game returning a kick against the Jets and missed the whole season. Somehow, by the time he had come back a year or so later, he was all hype. The New York media latched onto him, and he was their darling. Only after he hurt his knee twice, he really wasn't that fast or good any more, but he was still getting a ton of attention. He was "hot", gave a good interview, married a TV wife, etc. He had an awesome game against the Eagles in the playoffs leading up that Ravens Super Bowl (a pick for six where he tipped the ball, fell on his back, caught it, got up and ran it all the way back), but otherwise he was abused. Trent Dilfer and Brandon Stokely made mince meat out of him in that Super Bowl, and from then on it seemed like he couldn't cover anybody any more.
In a playoff game against San Francisco when I was an intern, he was utterly exposed perhaps worse then I've ever seen any cornerback exposed. The niners came on in some crazy come back and play after play Jeff Garcia found who Sehorn was covering and just got him the ball - to the tune of about 20+ fourth quarter points. I remember Chris Collinsworth absolutely screaming "The Niners were content to take Terrell Owens on anybody, but now they're content to take anybody on Sehorn!" And it was true - so true. It hurt. I'll always remember Sehorn as he was before he was hurt and before the hype, a lightning fast and physical corner who could've been one of the game's best. Alas, things turned out differently.)
By the end of his career, an all too common sight...
And here we are. What today will bring, our fourth Super Bowl, I have no idea. We may win, we may lose. I will be watching, there will surely be a few key plays to remember, and my lifelong football dance with New York Giants fandom will continue. This game has the possibility to be the best game in Giants history - an awesome thing in itself which has me pretty excited when I think about it. Or it may be quite less, and end in a loss. Either way it will fit somewhere. Regardless, it's a damn fine day to be a Giant's fan.
Let The Game begin.
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