When I think back over the course of my sports fan career, and it is a career, I have truly been one of the lucky ones. I don't have a Chicago Cubs or Boston Red Sox losing streak tied around my neck. I didn't grow up a Notre Dame fan in the 1980's and watch as a program that once dominated the sport now tries desperately to matter again. I don't root for the Arizona Cardinals or the L.A. Clippers, teams that have never proven they can muster any kind of a championship run.
No, my sports fan career has been truly blessed.
I became a Giants fan in 1989 and watched as, two years later, that team of gizzled veterans beat what looked like an immoveable object in the Buffalo Bills to win Super Bowl XXV in one of the all time great games ever played in the sport. I became a Yankee fan virtually from birth on, struggled through the 1980s, felt as far removed from the glory days of the franchise as one could, and then watched as a batch of veterans and youngsters went on an improbable run, creating a dynasty (perhaps the last dynasty) in baseball. I saw my team win four world championships. I was there, personally, to watch David Cone pitch a perfect game. I have seen the rise of the likes of Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera. I became a Uconn Basketball fan during the program's cinderella season of 1990, when the team not only made the tournament, but won a sweet sixteen game that would simply become known as the Clemson Game, and the watched as they gave one of the great programs in the country, Duke, perhaps the best game in that entire tournament, losing on a last second shot to Christian Laetner. Nine years later, I watched from my dorm room at Uconn as the team, the school, the program I had rooted for all my life, beat that same Duke program in a miracle win. Again, it was one of the best games in the history of the sport. I have seen Uconn go on to win more Big East titles, appear in another Final Four and win ANOTHER national championship, beating Duke, again, on their way to the title.
Of course, it hasn't been all roses. I lived through the Ray Handley years as a Giants fan and watched as Jim Fassel's crew was dismantled in 2001 by the Baltimore Ravens. I have seen the Yankees blow a 3-0 lead against the hated Red Sox, forever destroying my favorite "1918" chant. I watched as Uconn carried the best team in the country into the NCAA Tourney in 2006 and saw an no name George Mason team pull off one of the all time great upsets in NCAA history. Trust me, it hasn't always been great moments.
But on Sunday, I got yet another gift from the sports Gods, and it might go down as one of the biggest, best gifts they have ever handed out.
See, let me explain something. At this time last year the New York Football Giants were on the bottom rung of my rooting interests. I had desperately wanted them to miss the playoffs. I had actively rooted against them in the final game of the season versus the Redskins. I disliked the team intensely. I couldn't stand Tom Coughlin, his drill sargent attitude, his "never my fault" post game press conferences, and his seeming lack of ability to ever outcoach an opponent. I hated Eli Manning, believed him to be all hype and no substance, watched as Eli through flutter ball after flutter ball to confused and annoyed receivers, and sat back awe struck at his ability to turn the ball over at an almost Ryan Leaf pace.
The defense? A bully defense lead by the ultimate bully player, Michael Strahan, who talked a big game, played huge in small situations, and always seemed to be invisible when the team needed him most. They were a paper tiger, easily split when the time was right, and they seemed to be the opposite of the great Lawrence Taylor, Carl Banks, Pepper Johnson defenses of the late 80's early 90's that were still revered by all New Yorkers.
The team had a gluttony of bad attitude players, from Jeremy Shockey to Plaxico Burress to Michael Strahan. They were tipified by Tiki Barber, a GREAT player who walked this earth as if he had actually accomplished something more than simple numbers on a stat sheet. His play was astounding. His attitude atrocious, and Tiki made it impossible to root for him.
The Giants were a bad attitude, weak minded team, and I wasn't alone in wanting the whole thing blown up.
But the Giants, unlike most other sports franchises in New York, are an extremely patient organization, almost to a fault. They didn't let Tom Coughlin go, rather they hung on to him, giving him a one year extension. They didn't clean house, but rather hung on to all the major components that had left such a bad taste in most Giants' fans' mouth over the last several years. They hired Jerry Reese, a long time front office guy for the team, who seemed to immediately go into hibernation when several high-profile running backs switched teams via free agency and the Giants were left with unproven runners to replace the retired Tiki. Reese's big signing before draft day was Rueben Droughns.
And let's not kid ourselves, Giants fans. This team didn't exactly make believers out of all of us right away. In fact, for 15 games this year the feeling amoung most Giants fans was the same as it had been the year before: fire Coughlin, run your offense AROUND Eli rather than through him, blow up the team, clean house, and start over. Yes, they had won 10 games by the time week 17 rolled around. Yes, they had clinched a third playoff birth in a row. But as John Madden said during their week 14 game against the Redskins, "eventually, you have to start PLAYING like a playoff team, not just a team that made the playoffs." NO ONE in New York thought they would.
Then week 17 happened.
The Giants didn't have anything to play for. They were banged up. They had lost their starting tight end in Jeremy Shockey for the rest of the season. They had their best wide receiver, Plaxico Burress, limping around like an old maid. The debate raged in New York. Some said they needed to play the Patriots, fighting to be only the second team in history to complete a regular season undefeated, all out, resting no one and giving the Pats all they could handle. That way, the Giants could look at themselves in the mirror and know they made the Pats earn history. Others said such talk was nonsense, that they weren't beating the Pats anyway, that they owed their fans, their organization, and the city of New York a time to sit back and prepare for the playoffs. Winning in the postseaon was more important than anything else, they said, even history.
Tom Coughlin, however, decided to play it to the bone.
Now, history will look at that game as the unlikely turning point of a Giants season that was all but over when they lost to the Pats 38-35 that night. Most people thought the Giants would lose to Tampa the next week, and even if they won against the Bucs, they wouldn't be able to navigate past the vaunted Cowboys and, probably, the legendary Packers. But it was more than just the turning point for the team. It was the turning point for the fans as well.
The Giants, on that night, cast aside all the assumptions fans and media had about them. They fought gallantly against a better, stronger foe fighting for history. They forshadowed things to come by playing a GREAT game as the Pats played a GREAT game, just coming up a little short in the end. They were no longer a bully team or a bully defense. They didn't shrink from the challenge, they rose to it. They made the hustle plays, the little plays that didn't show up in the stat sheet, and they played mistake free football.
They also went from an utterly unlikeable bunch of players to a fresh group of guys playing their heart out. Week 17 was the first time any Giants fan really saw Steve Smith show the hands of glue he had throughout the playoffs. No one even knew who this Domenik Hixon out of Akron was until he started returning big kicks for the Giants in that game. Front office people had been raving about Tight End Kevin Boss, but it was in that game where fans got their first glimpse of a blocking end with great hands and a terrific ability to run the right routes. Justin Tuck had a perfectly fine year up until that point, but it was in that game where he joined Osi Uminuyra as the juggernaut pass rush combo they would become.
Before Week 17, Eli Manning was the kid brother of Peyton, an overhyped child who couldn't carry his weight. While the likes of Ben Rothleisberger and Phil Rivers were leading their teams to victories, Eli seemed to be regressing. He was coming off a year when he threw more interceptions than touchdowns, had turned the ball over more times than anyone else in the league, and at times just looked befuddled. But on that day, in week 17, he looked poised, controlled, and ready for the big stage.
None of that would have seemed possible in week 16. None of it would have seemed possible through the entire 2007 season. But in one game, the last game of the regular season, the Giants team changed.
By now you have read every recap of the Giants-Patriots Super Bowl. It will go down as one of the great games ever played in the league, one of the great upsets in the history of sports. It was a thrill ride, and it reminded everyone why they watch sports, even if they weren't rooting for one team or another. But what makes that game so special for a Giants fan is that, by the time Super Bowl XXXXII rolled around, the Giants had become an easy team to root for. There were no consessions that needed to be made. Fans didn't need to wear the face of hypocrisy to suddenly root for a team that seemed so unlikeable only a few weeks before. This group had gone on one of the great runs in football history, and they had done it with confidence, dignity, class, and a group of guys who suddenly screamed class.
What made it even sweeter was what the Patriots had become before the Super Bowl ever even kicked off. They were the cheaters who had gone out of their way to try and get an unfair advantage on their opponent, even if it was a small advantage. They had the sullen, unlikeable coach who had gone out of his way to run up the score on lesser teams throughout the year and had never once apologized for it. They had the deliquent wide receiver who, on the eve of the Super Bowl, had a restraining order placed against him for beating up a woman. They had a steriod cheat who was less than apologetic about his abuse of a performance enhancing drug. They had a skilled yet yappy, trash talking runt of a receiver in Wes Welker who made it impossible to appreciate his talents on the field. They had become the unlikeable team, a group of guys you couldn't root for unless you were related. And the fans, oh, the fans. The Patriot fans, this year, proved why Boston fans are universally hated more than any other fan base, even the New York fan base. They went out of their way to defend the Spygate scandal and villify Eric Mangini for having the balls to actually turn his old coach in for illegal activity. They brushed aside the Pats running up the score, coming out with the idiotic "if they don't want to get beat that bad, they should play better" routine. A fan base that has taken great glee in attacking everyone from Roger Clemens to Barry Bonds for their steriod use in baseball seemed perfectly happy that Rodney Harrison was sticking a needle in his a** every few days to try and gain an unfair advantage over his opponent, and NO ONE seemed to mind that the steroid freak was also considered the dirtiest player in the league. And how could anyone ignore the amazingly arrogant attitude both the players and the fans carried into the Super Bowl, giving the G-Men NO RESPECT whatsoever. They planned their 19-0 party, sold tickets, and invited celebrities to join in the celebration. They had the tee shirts and the posters already made. The game, in their mind, was a fait accompli.
That is what makes this victory oh so special. Rarely in football do you have a matchup that feature such an unlikeable team, so deserving of a humbling loss, like the one they got at the hands of the Giants. And the beauty is, the Giants just beat the Pats. There was no gluttony of turnovers. There was no injury that changed the complexion of the game. There was no big mistake that game one team the advantage over the other. The Giants didn't catch the Pats on a bad day. They just walked in and beat the living snot out of them. They just played better football in a well played football game.
Maybe, if those two teams play 10 times, the Pats win 8. Or maybe, if those two teams played 10 times we would find out that, on NO DAY could the Pats O-line match up with the Big Blue Monsters the Giants were throwing their way. Maybe we would find out that Randy Moss NEVER would have wanted to go over the middle consistently and that Tom Brady would remain inconsistent because of the pressure he was constantly under.
And maybe we would find out that, in the end, the Pats defense was old and vulnerable, and that, after years of throwing off offenses and just out thinking his opponent, Bill Belichick just flat out ran out of moves. There are only so many plays a football team can run, and maybe the genius coach just doesn't have another trick up his sleeve the league hasn't seen before. Mayeb matchups do make a game, like in boxing, and maybe we would learn, in 10 such meetings, that the Pats just never matched up with this Giants team at all.
But that is an arguement without an answer. Distraught, irrational Pats fans will convince themselves the Pats lost rather than the Giants won the game. The talk of "sluggish" play has already been wheeled out by the Beantown faithful. "They took no joy from the game anymore" is what many have already been saying. We, in New York, have a different view. We KNOW the Giants TOOK that joy from them when the Pats decided they wanted to impose their will on a team they way they had all season long, and they found that the Giants weren't going to sit still for it. The Giants TOOK their ability to respond because NO QB can go down the field and attack the other team when the other team is attacking first. This was a pre-emptive war on the part of the G-Men. Instead of waiting to be dictated to, they went out on a mission to set the tone, and they did.
For me, I will always remember that this game was the perfect win a fan could possibly have. Great plays, picture perfect finish, an easy team to root for, an even easier team to root against, and a magical drive that featured a magical play to essentially win the game. It was story book. It was made for the movies. It is a game and a season that will be written about and talked about for years to come. As a fan, you aren't promised that in your life. You may see a championship, you may not. You may see a great play, you may not. But no fan is ever guaranteed that they will see a game for the ages, a play for the ages, and have it be their team that comes out on the winning end.
I have gotten to see that now several times in my life and I hope I'm not done seeing them. But the one thing I know is, no matter what great games are left to come for me and for the teams I root for, nothing will ever TOP what I witnessed, as a Giants fan, on Sunday night.
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