Super Bowl XLII New England Patriots v New York Giants: George Kimballprofiles the sides going head to head in tomorrow's championship game in Glendale, Arizona.
Moments after Tom Brady had rallied the New England Patriots from a 12-point deficit to beat the New York Giants 38-35 in the regular-season finale on December 29th, Giants co-owner Robert Tisch encountered Bill Belichick in the crush of bodies that had swarmed on to the field at Giants Stadium.
Belichick offered his congratulations to Tisch on a hard-played contest that had, until the final moments, imperilled the Patriots's perfect record. Tisch first congratulated Belichick for having overseen the NFL's first perfect season record in 36 years, but could not restrain himself from adding: "Maybe we'll meet again before this thing is over." "Could be," Belichick nodded agreeably, no doubt finishing the sentence in his own mind, "when pigs fly."
Since both teams had solidified their play-off positions going into that evening at Giants Stadium, little beyond pride was at stake, and there was widespread speculation that one or both coaches might take the foot off the pedal early on.
Would Belichick, singularly focused on the Super Bowl, rest his regulars in anticipation of the play-offs, or would he play for history? Would quarterback Brady and wide receiver Randy Moss, both within striking distance of the NFL records for touchdown passes and touchdown receptions, be on the field long enough to rewrite the record books?
New York coach Tom Coughlin also faced a quandary. Since the Giants's position as the NFC's number five seed could not be affected by the outcome, prudence suggested that he not risk serious injuries to a team that had already lost several key players, including Pro Bowl tight end Jeremy Shockey. On the other hand, laying down for New England did not seem to be in Coughlin's nature. If the Patriots were going to go 16-0 they were going to have to earn their way into the record book.
The result was a memorably hard-fought contest that provided momentum for both winner and loser. Brady threw his 50th touchdown pass to break Peyton Manning's record and Moss caught his 23rd to surpass Jerry Rice's as the Patriots pulled out a squeaker, and the Giants, having convinced themselves that they could hold their own with the NFL's big boys, emerged from that game a team transformed, and improbably scrapped their way to three play-off wins, all on the road, to force a rematch in the sport's ultimate game.
When they renew hostilities in Super Bowl XLII at the University of Phoenix Stadium Glendale, Arizona, tomorrow, the Patriots know that they will be facing a team that gave them the biggest scare of the year. For their part, the Giants harbour the confidence of knowing that they are facing an opponent that they could have, and probably should have, beaten once already.
The Patriots and Giants, who will be meeting for the second time in five weeks, normally play each other every three years, but their respective fan bases share a deep-seated rivalry. From 1936, when the Boston Redskins relocated to Washington, until the 1960 introduction of the newly-formed Boston Patriots, the Giants were by default New England's team, and the six-state region retains to this day a veritable legion of lifelong Giants rooters who were never able to bring themselves to support the Patriots.
After 30 years as a veritable laughing stock, the Patriots have emerged in the present millennium as the NFL's dominant franchise, and will be seeking their fourth World Championship in the past seven years. They are favoured by 12-and-a-half points in tomorrow's Super Bowl, but no one need remind them that they themselves were 14-point underdogs to the St Louis Rams when they began their Super Bowl run six years ago.
THE PATRIOTS'S PRESENTdynasty sets them apart from their forbears - the Steelers of the 1970s, the 49ers of the 80s, and the Cowboys of the 90s - in that it has been accomplished in an era of salary cap restrictions and unfettered free agency.
While the roster they take into tomorrow's game includes just nine holdovers from the team that beat the Rams six years ago, that they have been wise in their acquisitions is evinced by the fact that 19 players from the current edition have Super Bowl experience - a case in point being Samoan-born linebacker Junior Seau, who at 39 will become the oldest defensive player ever to perform in a Super Bowl and was lured out of retirement by Belichick two years ago. Junior, who at this point should probably be answering to "Senior", returns to the Super Bowl after a 13-year absence. He was a member of the Chargers team that lost to San Francisco in Super Bowl XXIX.
Following their elimination by the Colts, the eventual champions, in last year's AFC championship game, the Patriots undertook a complete makeover of their receiving corps. If the acquisition (for a fourth-round draft choice) of Moss ranks as the steal of the century, the draft-day trade that brought the unheralded Wes Welker from the Dolphins (for second and seventh-round picks) was a close second.
While Moss led the team with 1492 yards and 23 TD receptions, Welker, a diminutive possession receiver, actually caught more passes (112 to Randy's 98), many of them in critical third-down situations, and, with the opposition ganging up on Moss to eliminate the deep threat, Welker became the leading receiver in the post-season, with 16 catches for 110 yards and two touchdowns.
When the Patriots began their run of Super Bowl appearances six years ago they were regarded as classic overachievers and a team devoid of superstars. That this is no longer the case is best illustrated by the fact that eight New England players were elected to the Pro Bowl (All-Star) game which takes place in Hawaii a week from tomorrow.
Only one Giant, defensive end Osi Umenyiora, was selected for the NFC team in Honolulu. Umenyiora is one of two UK-born players who will participate in tomorrow's game, joining his one-time college team-mate, Giants placekicker Lawrence Tynes. Umenyiora was born in London of Nigerian parents, who moved back to Nigeria before resettling in the US.
Tynes, the product of a union between a Scottish mother and a sailor in the American Navy, was born in Greenock and came to America at the age of 10. Both earned scholarships to Troy University in Alabama.
Umenyiora was drafted by the Giants in the second round, while Tynes was undrafted a year earlier, battled his way into the NFL with stints with the Scottish Claymores and Ottawa of the Canadian League.
BOTH PLAYERS WEREinstrumental in the Giants's 2007 success. Umenyiora earned his second Pro Bowl selection by anchoring the New York defence, while Tynes (after missing two kicks that might have won the game in regulation time) booted a 47-yard overtime kick to beat the Packers in the NFC title game.
While Belichick was overseeing the Patriots's perfect season, Coughlin's nearly ended in September, After the Giants lost their first two games, the New York tabloids were demanding his head. (One of them, labelling the embattled coach "Dead Man Walking", said of the Giants "their defence is a shameful laughing stock, devoid of playmaking, poise, and coordination, and the litany of injuries and mindless discipline that has stalked the Coughlin Era gives anguished Giants fans Deja Boo.").
Belichick and Coughlin have a shared history, dating back to their days as assistant coaches with the Giants on the staff of the irascible Bill Parcells two decades ago. In stark contrast to last year's Super Bowl, a mutual hug-fest featuring the game's first pairing of African-American head coaches Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith, Belichick and Coughlin could be auditioning for a road company casting of "Grumpy Old Men."
In an era in which coaches' game-day wear is often dictated by clothing companies, Belichick, taciturn and ever-focused, commonly wears a rumpled grey hoodie on the sideline. Coughlin is even less likely to smile, and in his interactions with the media his countenance evinces the look of a man waiting for his enema to kick in.
The quarterbacks of the teams represent a study in contrast. Brady, an unheralded sixth-round draft choice when he came out of Michigan, inherited his job six years ago when the Patriots's incumbent, Drew Bledsoe, was injured, and has never looked back. The NFL's Most Valuable Player this season, he could join Pittsburgh's Terry Bradshaw as the Super Bowl's winningest quarterback with a victory tomorrow, and his boyish good looks and his illustrious accomplishments have made him a media darling.
Eli Manning was a first-round draft choice who came to New York surrounded by fanfare, and you get the impression he's just as happy to cede the limelight to his opposite number in the run-up to the big game. Eli, the younger, quieter, and, it was widely assumed, somewhat less talented brother of Colts quarterback Peyton Manning, spent the 2007 season in genuine, week-to-week fear for his job - and the widespread criticism was not entirely unjustified. His poised performance during the Giants's play-off run got him off the hot seat, but no one knows better than Manning that the respite could be transitory.
The performance of the respective quarterbacks under the glare of the spotlight in the week just passed has been instructive. Brady has used his position to tout causes ranging from Global warming ("Go see An Inconvenient Truth," he urged reporters at Tuesday's media session) to his favourite band (U2), and, asked about his status as "an American hero," Brady demanded perspective with his response: "I throw a football. I happen to do that well enough to be on this platform. But I don't think any of us can cure cancer."
Manning, in the meantime, found himself answering nearly as many questions about his brother as about himself. "My job is to play football," Eli shrugged before uttering one of his more expansive quotes. "It has nothing to do with anything else."
THEIR SUCCESS HASseen the Patriots's image transformed from one of loveable overachievers to that of the league's bullies. Following the first game of the season, a 38-14 win over the Jets, Belichick was fined $500,000 and the team another $250,000 after a New England operative was caught illegally videotaping the opposition's sideline signals.
Safety Rodney Harrison missed the first four games of the year with a suspension after testing positive for Human Grown Hormone, and the "perfect" season also brought numerous allegations that the New England's players were a eye-gouging, scrotum-grabbing lot.
"When you have these pile-ups, it's not like going to Boy Scout meetings," owner Robert Kraft responded to the latter charge. "I don't think any of our players are dirty players - and I've noticed that those negative comments are usually made after the opponent has just lost."
Usually? It's been a good long while since a Patriots's opponent did anything else.
