Super Bowl Thoughts

A few thoughts on Sunday’s big game.

1.  The Giants winning was not a shocker.

I wish I’d followed my gut and made a Giants pick before the game, so then I could look really smart.  Honestly – I felt like, the way things went for the two teams through the playoffs, the Giants had more than a shot.  That pass rush is ferocious.  They bore out my instinct.  People who say that game was an upset…it wasn’t.

2.  Belichick shouldn’t have walked off the field.

I don’t buy Belichick’s excuse, that he didn’t know there was a second left on the clock.  He’s Bill Belichick – he doesn’t miss anything.  I think he just doesn’t give a crap about formalities.  He thinks he’s above them.  Common courtesy is for regular people.  It’s not a big deal, in the grand scheme of things, that he walked off.  It’s just one more example of how arrogant Belichick is.

3.  Tom Brady didn’t look well.

It was humid inside that stadium.  Guys with the face-mask visors looked like they needed windshield wipers there was so much condensation.  And Brady looked like some poor schmo with a 104 fever, that’s how sweaty his face was.  He didn’t look comfortable at all.  Eli Manning didn’t seem bothered.  He wasn’t bothered by the cold in Green Bay either.  Could it be that Eli is actually a cooler customer than either Tom Brady or Brett Favre?  He certainly played like it.

4.  The Giants are better off without Jeremy Shockey.

I don’t care what anyone says – it’s not a coincidence that Eli played better after Shockey went down.  The Vikings played the Giants last year and wiped them out.  Eli seemed like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders in that game.  He turned around 180 degrees from that in the playoffs.  He just looked like a different guy.  And it wasn’t just his reaching some point on his learning curve or “figuring things out.”  It was not having that big selfish jerk Shockey on his ass the whole game.  The Giants should dump Shockey – trade him to Miami or something.  They don’t need him.

5.  The Patriots need to be criticized more.

Everyone’s rightfully raving about Eli Manning’s sick Tarkenton-like escape from the sack and heave to David Tyree play – but can we also say that the Patriots defense was awful on that play?  They should’ve sacked Eli, and they should never have allowed Tyree to make that catch.  How many guys got their hands on Eli?  And there were two guys right on Tyree, but neither made the play.  That’s crap defense as much as heroic offense.

6.  Randy Moss should’ve had his moment.

I almost felt bad for The Freak.  He did nothing the whole game, then finally got to catch some balls on that last Pats scoring drive, and had the touchdown that should’ve been the winner.  But it didn’t happen.  Randy’s whole playoff experience has been frustration – the Falcons upset in 1998; 41-doughnut; and now this.  Now he may never win a Super Bowl, despite having been on the two highest-scoring teams in history – teams whose combined records in those seasons was 34-3.