Clarion Content

The Giants won the Super Bowl? The Giants won the Super Bowl. There may not be enough crow in this world to fill the Clarion's request.

We're stunned. We know we're not alone, but we're still stunned, dumbfounded. Even though, as the game unfolded, we kept saying to ourselves, they're letting the Giants stay in this. The Giants have thrown an interception, had a fumble, allowed a pretty big kickoff return, and the Patriots aren't making'em pay. The Patriots were flat the whole game. They made curious bad choices, like electing not to go on 4 and 2 in the Giants territory, but then later going for it on 4 and 13. What?? Their play calling was conservative. They ignored Randy Moss until their last drive of the game. They didn't adjust to the Giants' pass rush. They never looked upset that they were losing.

Yet the whole way, there was still this sense of this can't be happening. There is no way the Giants are going to win. Even with 35 seconds left, when the Giants had to kickoff with the lead, we were remembering John Kasay and the Panthers. We were thinking, you better not kick it out of bounds. You don't want to give Brady a chance. And even when Lawrence Tynes didn't kick it out of bounds, we still thought, with Brady, Moss, Welker, yes it would be amazing, but it wouldn't be shocking to see them drive down the field for the last second game tying kick. (We thought it might come down to the Pats missing Adam Vinateri. And maybe it did, because there sure were some curious non-field goal choices by Belichick in game the Patriots lost by 3 points!)

Well, nope. The kicker didn't matter at the end. They did throw deep to Randy Moss for the first time all day. And he did have the Giants' secondary double team beat, and Brady heaved the ball 75-80 yards in the air, but unfortunately, it needed about two or three more feet on it. Brady didn't have it. Moss didn't catch it. And that was that.

Now, Eli Manning has won as many Super Bowls as Payton. Eli has won as many Super Bowls as Brett Favre. Tom Coughlin has won a Super Bowl, and his job security is finally off of the table. We may be in shock, but the facts of the matter aren't going to change.

All hail the conquering Giants...

Labels: NFL, sports