Eli to Canton: The Math

It's been a week since the Super Bowl and I still wake up each morning with a smile on my face.

A wise man (my buddy Rob) once noted that being a sports fan is a losing proposition. Even Yankee fans end more seasons in heartbreak than not, and for fans of normal teams it's an endless cycle of disappointment punctuated by the occasional glorious title. (Or as Rob put it: "I'm 3-90, lifetime!")

Well, Giants fans have been blessed with two very special championships in 4 years. Sure, all titles are special, but these had a little extra seasoning. The combination of their serendipity, the closeness of the games, the quality of the opponents*, and the class of the organization...I'm getting weepy just thinking about it.

* Combined records of the 8 teams the Giants beat on the way to its 2 Super Bowls: 108-26. Six of the eight teams were 13-3 or better in regular season.

I'm not going to do any game analysis here - it's all been done to death. I really want to make two quick points, and then have an extended discussion about Eli Manning's Hall of Fame chances.

First, the two quick points:

• Underrated star of the postseason was Hakeem Nicks. He had a spectacular season (76 catches/1186 yards/7 TDs in only 14 games). But he was overshadowed by the even more spectacular Victor Cruz (82 catches, 1536 yards, and 9 TDs in 14 games, with a crazy-good 18.7 average). Cruz deservedly became a New York folk hero, but Nicks lit up the postseason: 28 catches, 444 yards, and 4 touches. In the combined 18 games, he passed Cruz in catches and TD catches. Nicks got way less love than he deserved*.

* Bonus video coverage: I think this catch was a much harder grab than the Manningham catch. And if you've never seen this highlight from a catch he made at North Carolina, check it out. It's as amazing as the Tyree Helmet Grab).

• I'm hoping the phrase "I can't throw the ball and catch the ball" catches on, as a general phrase for "I can't do everything." (I know, the original phrase was "My husband can't..." but I don't have much use for that.)

Now, on to Eli's Hall of Fame chances.

A Canton Career?

A lot of ridiculous nonsense has been spouted by people in the past week. Indeed, I believe that any writer*, announcer, or pundit of any kind who argues that Eli has now surpassed Peyton in greatness should immediately have their credentials stripped from them.

Peyton has won 4 league MVPs. Guess who has more? NOBODY! He has won more MVPs than anyone who has ever played the game. He's 3rd all time in passing yards. He's 3rd all time in touchdowns. He's thrown 125 more TD passes than Joe Montana. He's been in 11 Pro Bowls. He's one of the greatest of all time, and even Eli's most devoted supporters (of which I'm one) know he is not that.

* A special award for outrageous stupidity should go to Foxsports Jason Whitlock. On Showtime's Inside the NFL he made his unsupported-by-facts "Eli will surpass Peyton" argument. After Phil Simms and Cris Collinsworth (who clearly knew they were dealing with a moron) pointed out how the Colts crashed without him this year, he argued that was Peyton's fault, too, since he built the team around himself. How does this dolt have a job as a professional sportswriter and I'm writing this blog that only you are reading?

Eli may not be on Peyton's level, but he's building a fine career on his own. Many folks have made the Eli to Canton argument, and they talk about the Super Bowls and the fourth quarter comebacks and his unruffled demeanor. But you see, when you're talking Halls of Fame - football, baseball, basketball, whatever - it's essentially a math problem. You look at the numbers, do some projections, and voila' - you can make a pretty good guess at their chances. And guess what: Eli has a damn good chance of making the Hall of Fame.

Here's my methodology for projecting Eli Manning as a Hall of Fame candidate:

• I looked at the last six QBs elected, all of whose career started in the 80's or later (Elway, Marino, Moon, Kelly, Young, Aikman)
• I focused on six key metrics: passing yards, touchdown passes, interceptions, TD/Int ratio, SB MVP, and League MVP*
• I projected the remainder of Eli's career. I assumed a 14 year career, which would actually be below average compared to the aforementioned 6 (all played 15 or more but Aikman [12] and Kelly [who wasted 3 seasons in the USFL]
• I assumed, for Eli, an average of 3,500 yards and 20 TDs per year, over those six years. That is very conservative, I think, especially considering he went for 4900 yards and 29 TDs this year, and has two great young receivers
• Finally, I added another calculation, showing a more aggressive projection. I assume 16 seasons, at 3,750 yards per and 25 touchdowns per. Again, this is below his numbers the past few years, and 16 seasons is reasonable

* I chose these stats because they are the ones most valued by Hall of Fame voters. Completion percentage, for example, is not valued by the Hall, or Chad Pennington (highest all time) would be writing his Acceptance Speech.

LINK TO CHART: ELI MANNING VS. LAST 6 HoFers

So how do those proections match up with those six? Using the conservative numbers, pretty damn good. Nearly 50,000 yards passing and over 300 TDs. More Super Bowl MVPs than anyone. Only Aikman has more titles, but he destroys Aikman in yards and TDs*. His yardage and TD numbers also blow away Young and Kelly, and of course his titles blow away Marino and Moon.

* You can make a good case Aikman doesn't belong in the Hall of Fame. He was a pretty good quarterback on a team with a fabulous defense and the great Emmitt Smith.

His career would be most comparable to Elway - indeed, using my numbers, they would be nearly identical to Elway. Of course, Eli threw in a more pass-happy league than Elway. But Eli has one big advantage over Elway: his Super Bowl teams, especially this one, were built on his arm. Elway's Super Bowl teams were built on Terrell Davis' legs.

With these numbers (and they could be much better, if he plays like he did this year for a few years), he'd rank in the Top 10 of all time, maybe even the Top 5, in the two key Hall stats. Only 4 QBs in history have thrown for over 50,000 yards, and only 6 have thrown over 300 touchdown passes. Brady and Brees will likely join that group as well, but no other active quarterback is ahead of Eli's pace.

I thought the interceptions would hurt him more, but I was wrong. Yes, he led the league twice in picks, but again, using my projections, his career is a near-perfect match to Elway. And his TD/INT ratio is better than Aikman, Elway, Kelly, and Moon. (Again, Aikman's performance here is less than Hall-worthy).

And of course, he has the intangibles. He already has more 4th quarter comebacks than HoFers Staubach, Aikman, Griese, Dawson, Starr, and others. He'll likely pass Fouts, Bradshaw, Kelly, and Montana before he's done.

And finally, if you're wondering if he's just a beneficiary of the pass-happy NFL, the answer is "not really". Among active players, Peyton and Brady* are already all-time greats and Brees is cruising to Canton. But Eli is ahead of his 2004 classmates, Roethlisberger and Rivers, and Aaron Rodgers will suffer from a late start in his career. No other active player projects comfortably for the Hall of Fame right now.

* These two guys are playing for higher stakes right now: the chance to be known as the greatest of all time. But those quests took huge hits this year, as Peyton's assault on the record books was checked, perhaps irrevocably, and Brady...well, you know what happened to him.

Eli does have one big knock against him: Pro Bowls. He's only been to two so far. And in a conference featuring Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, and Matthew Stafford, it will be no easy task to make them in the years ahead. Of course, if he wins a 3rd Super Bowl he'll be a lock.

Of course, these are the conservative numbers. Use the aggressive numbers and you're approaching 60,000 yards and 400 touchdowns. Toss in another Super Bowl or two, and you have a career that Joe Montana would envy. Hey, a guy can dream, right?

Either way, the math looks good. Of course, in the violent world of the National Football League, health is the key. Eli Manning has been an amazingly durable player, but so was his brother. Eli needs to play a lot more football before he gets a plaque in NFL Hall of Fame. But at this rate, it's looking pretty darn good.

See ya in Canton.

Bonus Fun Fact for Jets fans who are sick of hearing about Eli: Sometime in the first game of next season, the announcers will inform us that Eli Manning has just passed Joe Namath in passing yardage

C Student in X's and O's

There's a lot of plays on that call sheet.

I have a confession to make. I don't really understand football.

I know a lot about football. I know that 4 yards a carry is a good average, that a facemask penalty is 15 yards, and that a slot receiver lines up off tackle. I could break down, in enormous detail, the differences between Dan Marino's 1984 season, Peyton Manning's 2004 season, and Tom Brady's 2007 season*. When a flag is thrown, I usually know what the penalty is. And recently, while driving home with the Rock Star, we tried to name every Super Bowl winner, and damn near got 'em all right (though I had a few out of order; it's tough to put those 70's Cowboys, Dolphins, and Raiders in the right order).

* In fact, I did.

But when I'm actually watching a game, I'm pretty sure that 90% of what is happening on the field is going over my head. In fact, I'm pretty sure that 60% of it is going over the head of a Pop Warner coach.

Football has always been an enormously complicated game - 22 players on the field have rather specific assignments on each play. Sometimes those assignments are simple, sometimes they have options and variations mid-play. How can you track all of them?

But today's NFL has taken to it another level. A few years back, ESPN Magazine broke down everything that goes on in the head of Peyton Manning prior to a snap. The defense is set up in a pass D - or is it a run D disguised as a pass D? The middle linebacker sneaks up one step...Manning keeps his eye on him. Strong safety takes two steps left. Manning barks out a few signals and changes the play...or did he? Hike. Linebackers shift, safety shifts, Manning throws a ball to an unoccupied spot in the end zone - where Reggie Wayne arrives a moment later to catch it.

Who could break that down as its happening? The answer is: nobody. Even Peyton Manning, sitting in a broadcast booth five years from now, won't be able to thoroughly break it down as he watches, say, Andrew Luck against the Steelers. To do so would require not only Manning's superhuman football IQ, but an inner knowledge of the workings of Luck's offense, detailed study of the Steelers pass coverage schemes, and certitude of the original called play, to know if Luck audibled or fake-audibled.

If Future Peyton doesn't know what just happened, what chance does an average fan have?

I bring all this up because, as you may have heard, the Giants and Patriots have a rematch of Super Bowl 42 coming up. The exhausting, mind-numbing coverage have focused almost entirely on non-football stuff. The Rematch. Eli playing in his brother's building. The personalities of the coaches. The history of Tom Brady's hair.

We do all this because, frankly, most of us can't have an intelligent conversation about zone blitzes, run blocking schemes and defensive audibles. That's why, on NFL Mondays all around the country, sports radio features non-stop discussions of things like clock management and body language. Few callers are smart enough to talk about a defense's failure to adjust to the right guard's interior blocking, so instead we call up and blame the loss on the head coach's sideline demeanor, or the fact that he went on it at 4th and 1 from his own 48.

We are, however, breeding a smarter generation of football fans. Tomorrow's football fans will have thousands and thousands of hours of Madden behind them - selecting defenses, calling plays, even strategizing seasons. This is much better preparation for Advanced Fanship than what I bring to the table.

I'm trying my best, I really am, to ignore all the silly stuff that has no impact on what happens between the lines. I like the way the Giants' offense matches up against the Patriots' defense; I worry about our safeties covering their tight ends; and I think, if Vince Wilfork brings his A game, look out.

But then I can't help noticing...the Patriots are 13-2 since Brady cut his hair...

Reverse Jinxing the Giants

About the New York Football Giants...

I feel like the backup second baseman on a team where the pitcher has a perfect game going. Nobody is supposed to say anything to the pitcher for fear of jinxing it. But especially not an insignificant person like the backup second baseman. The catcher might obliquely discuss strategy with the pitcher, the star hitter might exhort the lineup to score more runs, the shortstop might remind his teammates to stay sharp on the infield. But bench warmers should sit meekly in the corner and say NOTHING to NOBODY about NOTHING!

That's sort of how I feel about this run the Giants are on. After a 7-7 start where the G-Men lost to some bad teams, needed 4th quarter comebacks for 5 wins, and were, in total, outscored by the opposition, this team is suddenly playing like an elite football team. And fans are wondering if...

Well, hold on there. I don't want any jinxy-cat thoughts to float into my head. I dream of exorcising the Trey Junkin demons*. I dream of shutting up every Patriot fan who thinks SB42 was a helmet fluke. I dream of making Ray Lewis cry on the sideline, erasing the stain of Super Bowl XXXV. But I'm nervous about giving voice to these dreams - I have a fear of jinxing this team like I never have before.

* Watching the clip still hurts, not just because of the epic meltdown but because the Niners should have been flagged for pass interference on the play. Mike Pereira, who has been a great addition to the Fox broadcast team, was head of officiating at the time, and he made the official decision that it was a blown call, and the Giants should have had a second chance to line up - this time for a chip shot field goal - to win the game.

Regular readers know I didn't have this superstition aversion in January 08. I had multiple blogasms back then. But this time, well, let's say I'm knocking more wood than a carpenter with the yips.

I'm a deeply rational guy. I don't believe in astrology or ghosts or sixth senses. I don't believe in black cats or unlucky numbers or curses. When someone has a feeling that something is going to happen, and that thing actually happens, I don't think it's because they have some sort of second sight - I think that a) they are incapable of recognizing the underlying rational thoughts that led to their feeling and b) they have conveniently forgotten the many times their feeling was wrong.

But when it comes to sports, I'm worse than a medieval peasant in the Transylvanian forest. For example, my daughter gave me some blue and white Mardi Gras beads to wear to the Cowboys game in Week 17. I wore them to MetLife Stadium and voila - Giants won the NFC East! Naturally I took them back to the stadium for the Falcons game and - they worked again!

Would they work on television? Sure enough, I wore them for the Packer game and even though Green Bay is 1,004 miles away from my living room, they worked! I'm sticking with the beads, baby.

I get this from my father. Poppa Keats is a religious man - he's a lector at his church, the pastor of his fire department, and wouldn't miss Mass on Sunday if he had to swim the Mississippi, climb Everest, and parachute from a skyscraper to get there. But he believes in a higher power - he believes the single biggest factor in the outcome of every Giants' game is whether or not he's watching. We frequently have conversations like the one we had Sunday night:

Me: What'd you think of the game Sunday?

Dad: Ah, I missed it.

Me: You missed it?! You missed the playoff game.

Dad: Well, I was watching, but Rodgers threw the TD pass to open the 2nd quarter so I turned it off. I put it back on again in the 4th, and he threw another one.

Me: Dad, I read a lot of articles about the game, and nobody seems to think your turning the TV off was a factor.

Dad: They won, didn't they?

In light of all this, I want to avoid any conversations of "If we win Sunday...". So in an attempt at a little counter-jinx, here's why the Giants won't win Sunday:

• The 49ers had a regular season point differential of +151! The Giants actually gave up more points than (400) than they scored (394). No team has ever won a Super Bowl with a negative regular season point differential.
• As for the myth that the Niners have a weak offense and the Giants a strong one...not really true. Niners are ranked 26th in offense and the Giants 8th, but that measures yards. In points scored they are 11th, the Giants 9th.
• You may have read this elsewhere, but the Giants are ranked Last in rushing. And not just rushing yards, but Last in yards per attempt, too. The Niner defense is ranked First in rushing yards allowed, and First in yards per attempt. That seems like a bad combo.

So yeah, the Niners struggled down the stretch, barely eking out wins against the Seahawks and Rams, and losing to the Cardinals. Sure, the Niners lost to two teams the Giants beat this year (Cowboys and Cardinals). And yeah, the Giants' point differential in each of the past four games is higher than their entire regular season combined (+15, +17, +22, +17), and they came against teams with a .500 record or better. And it's true that the last time these teams played the Giants best rusher and best linebacker were home nursing injuries.

But the important thing to note here is that I am not making any positive assumptions about this Sunday. I hope the gods (now that they are through with Tebow) are listening.

Finnegan's Revenge

In 2002 Bill Simmons wrote one of his most famous columns, The 13 Levels of Losing, updating it five years later with 3 more categories (one for my 2007 Mets. Ug.) The incredible, devastating, painful, shocking, humiliating, debilitating, mind-numbing, gut-wrenching, soul-destroying loss – no, loss is too weak a word - murder suffered by the New York Giants this past Sunday doesn’t quite fit one of the 16 categories perfectly. It matched eight of them.

XV. Achilles Heel: A fatal flaw is revealed (we knew special teams would cost us eventually)

XIV. Alpha Dog: A stud on the other team is too much (the Mutt-Murderer)

XIII. Rabbit’s Foot: Where seemingly everything goes wrong (let's not relive those 8 minutes)

XII. Sudden Death (no, it wasn’t overtime, but the clock showing zero as DeSean Jackson proved he’s the league’s next wide receiver ASSH0LE* made it feel like it)

XI. Monkey Wrench: Your coach makes an idiot decision (TMQB breaks down Coughlin/Fewell's Quartus Horribilis)

VI. Broken Axle: Where the wheels come off (um, yeah)

IV. The Guillotine: Where even the fan feels like he contributed to the karmic evil (I confess I started thinking through the playoff scenarios with Giants as a 2 seed)

III. Stomach Punch: Where the opponent makes an improbable play and/or your guy screws up (see above, multiple times)

* I don’t usually curse here at FreeTime, but DeSean Jackson – who has clearly learned from TO, Randy Moss, Ochocinco, and other members of today’s wide receiving prima donna community, cannot be described with a lesser word. How is that one position attracts so many individuals so badly in need of a beating?

Yes, the Giants collapse against the Eagles used up 8 of the 16 levels of losing! But you know that here at FreeTime we traffic in Optimism. We’re all about the silver lining, our cup is half full, we look on the bright side, we turn lemons into lemonade – yes, we’re delusional as Martini in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest!

So I’m going to ask my Giant fan friends to take a step off the ledge…yes that’s it, open the window, yes, c’mon back in the room. Okay, finger off the trigger, put the gun down. Okay? Listen to me. This loss was many horrible things, it contained 8 of the 16 levels of losing all wrapped up in one giant fetid steaming smelly pile of elephant dung. Bu here’s what it wasn’t:

A Level I Loss: That Game
A Level IX Loss: The Full-Fledged Butt Kicking

“That Game” is Simmons’ name for Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. And “The Full-Fledged Butt Kicking” – well you can figure out what that is. (Interestingly, the example he uses for this is the New York Giants 41-0 beatdown of the Minnesota Vikings in the 2001 NFC Championship Game. )

It’s important to remember this is not a Level I loss because Level I losses end seasons. The Giants 39-38 playoff collapse to the Niners in 2003 – a game in which they led by 24 in the third quarter - was a Level I loss. The 23-22 playoff loss to the Vikings in 1997 when the onside kick bounced off Chris Calloway’s chest and the Vikes scored 10 points in the final minute was a Level I loss. They had all the horror of Sunday’s game but no chance at redemption.

Nor was it a Level IX loss. The NFL had a wonderful example of a Full-Fledged Butt-Kicking recently – the Patriots’ 45-3 humiliation of the Jets. When the most common phrase said about your team the following week is “exposed as a fraud”, that’s a tough loss.

But the Giants did not get their butts kicked Sunday. And they did not end their season Sunday. Indeed, they remain well-positioned for a playoff spot.

So as you look for some scrap of optimism to hold onto, think about it this way: if you asked Tom Brady and the Patriots if they would like to face the Jets in the playoffs, that locker room would erupt in cheers. But if you asked Michael Vick to answer in complete honesty whether or not he wants to face the Giants again – indeed, whether he ever wants to be in the same room as Justin Tuck again – I suspect he’d answer like Apollo Creed at the end of Rocky: “Ain’t gonna be no rematch.”

As for redemption…I think we all know what that looks like. A six seed for the Giants, followed by a victory against the Bears in the playoffs, followed by a trip to Philadelphia in the 2nd round.

In these days of sensitivity around football injuries I’ll say what I know all Giants fans are feeling: no matter what happens after that, that loss will be expunged if the Canine Killer and TO's Spawn leave the field on stretchers - not seriously hurt, mind you; just a little shaken up - and the Giants leave it in victory.

Oh, and as for the title of this post...Finnegan is my dog's name. He hates Michael Vick.

Thick-Necked Cliche Machines

It’s time for the FreeTime NFL playoff predictions!

While other “analysts” and “experts” try to predict who will “win” the “games”, we go about things a little differently here at FreeTime. That is because we have no idea who will win the games. This is a league, after all, in which the 5/6 seed has won two of the last four Super Bowls, and four of the last twelve.

Bengals-Jets: who knows? Pats-Ravens: you got me. Cowboys-Eagles: beats my two pair. Packers-Cardinals: seriously, I’m not kidding, I have no idea.

But I can confidently predict that an army of large, thick-necked men of limited vocabulary will appear on your television screens over the next month loudly and emphatically spouting cliches that have no basis in established fact.

Here are some of the things you'll hear:

"Defense Wins in the Playoffs, Boom."
This statement is absolutely true…except when it’s not. Since 1970, 15 top-ranked defenses have appeared in the Super Bowl. But 17 top-ranked offenses have appeared. In the same time period, 42 top-five defenses have played in the Super Bowl, while 45 top-five offenses got there.

For every Super Bowl Champion that relied mostly on defense to win (02 Bucs, 00 Ravens), I can name a Super Bowl Champion that relied mostly on offense (99 Rams, 06 Colts). Super Bowl champions, except for the rare exceptions like the four in this paragraph, are teams that are very good on both sides of the ball.

Bonus FreeTime Trivia question: only 3 Super Bowl champs have finished the season #1 in offense and defense. Name them (answer below).

(Hat tip to Arrow Head Addict)

"JB, Momentum is Really Important in the Playoffs."
Last year the Cardinals lost 4 of their last 6, and were blown out in 3 of those losses. They went on to beat the Falcons, Panthers, and Eagles in the playoffs and came within a spectacular Santonio Holmes catch of winning the Super Bowl. The 2007 Giants went 4-4 in the 2nd half and lost 2 of their last 3 games, including a home game against the non-playoff Redskins. They won the Super Bowl.

Oh, and everyone who thinks the Jets are a lock against the Bengals because they blew them out 37-0 last week, consider this: The Eagles destroyed the Cardinals 48-20 in Week 13 last year. Naturally, they lost to the Cardinals in the NFC Championship game two months later.

"As you know, Terry, experience is Really Important in the Playoffs."
On February 3, 2002, Tom Brady walked on the field for Super Bowl XXXV. He was an NFL rookie. It was his 17th NFL start. He started the season on the Patriot’s bench and was only starting because of an injury to Drew Bledsoe. The vast majority of his teammates had zero rings on their fingers. The Patriots won the Super Bowl.

On February 4, 2008, Tom Brady walked on the field for Super Bowl XLII. He was an NFL veteran. He’d had over 100 NFL starts. He was a 3-time Super Bowl winner, a 2-time Super Bowl MVP, that season’s MVP, and a sure-fire Hall of Famer. Most of his teammates had extensive playoff experience and some had multiple Super Bowl rings. The Patriots lost the Super Bowl.

In fact, since 2001 every Super Bowl has been won by a QB appearing in their very first Super Bowl, except for Brady’s 2nd and 3rd, and Roethlisberger’s 2nd. And Roethlisberger’s 2nd was won by a rookie head coach. The head coaches of all those winners (again, except for Belichick), were appearing in their first Super Bowl.

"Special Teams is the Key, Cris."
Yeah, special teams is the key, way more important than scoring points on offense and preventing them on defense. This is too stupid for me to even refute with statistics but I do guarantee these words will be uttered at some point this month. I can, however, explain why people can’t stop themselves from uttering this stupidity once in a while.

Special teams are usually boring, predictable, and uneventful. Punts are rarely returned more than 10 yards, and kick-offs rarely more than 30. Short field goals tend to go in and longer ones are a little sketchier. But every once in a while a kickoff is returned for a touchdown or a field goal is blocked and because that is so unusual it is given more importance than the 120 plays that occurred that day.

But if special teams were so important, they wouldn't put all the backups there.

"In the playoffs..."
What all of the above nonsense has in common is the idea that playoff football is demonstrably different than regular season football. Oh sure, the rules are the same and the field is the same and the scoring is the same and the players are the same and the officials are the same and the equipment is the same…but it’s the playoffs. And different things matter in the playoffs.

Now I’m willing to concede that these thick-necked mastodons have actually played in the playoffs, whereas I mostly watch them on television and occasionally from Section 303 in Giants Stadium. But it seems to me that playoff games work out pretty much the same ways as regular season games. Sometimes it’s a blowout, sometimes its close. Sometimes a handful of big plays are decisive, sometimes it’s a long grind of a game. Sometimes teams win by throwing it 50 times and sometimes they win with a committed ground attack. Sometimes there are dramatic comebacks and sometimes there aren’t. Line play, a balanced offensive attack, putting pressure on the quarterback, turnovers – these things that are so important in regular season games are also important in playoff games.

So whenever you hear the announcer preface any observation with “In the playoffs….” put your b.s. monitor on alert. Oh, and one more thing: take the Packers and the points.

Trivia answer: 72 Dolphins, 89 Niners, and 96 Packers

Sour Grapes

A couple of bitter, whiny Super Bowl observations from a Giants fan who still can't believe Plax shot himself...

The Greatest Ever?
Everyone from Roger Goodell to Peter King to NBC is rushing to call SB43 the "greatest ever". Really?

The greatest thing in sports is the upset. There's a reason every sports movie ever made - from Rocky to The Bad News Bears to Hoosiers - is about upsets. Even the movies that don't seem to be about upsets - think Bull Durham - are about the underdog struggling for some measure of respect.

We remember Broadway Joe's guarantee and Dwight Clark's catch and the Miracle Mets and the 04 Sox because they weren't supposed to win.

Last year, the Wild Card Giants beat the undefeated Patriots with a 4th quarter TD drive that included Manning-to-Tyree. This year, the heavily favored #1 seeded Steelers going for their 6th title beat the 9-7 Cardinals, one of the most legendarily inept franchises in professional sports history. Yesterday was the very opposite of an upset, whereas SB42 was the greatest upset since Al Michael asked us if we believe in miracles.

And while yesterday's finish was amazing, it wasn't much of a game before then, was it? The teams combined for 18 penalties and 162 penalty yards, both good for second most ever. And according to Boomer Esiason, the refs could have flagged the Cardinals on every play for holding.

Everybody just relax on this "greatest game ever" nonsense.


Steelers, Cards, Ravens, Eagles Share Something
Another Giants thought...Peter King did his year-end Fine Fifteen this morning and ranked the Giants 7th. Obviously Steelers and Cardinals are 1/2, and I get you have to go 3/4 for the Eagles/Ravens. Then he goes Titans 5th . Okay, defensible so far.

Then - the Patriots 6th. You know, the Patriots - who didn't make the playoffs. The Patriots - whose schedule was softer than Matt Lauer's Obama interview. The Patriots - who had 6 games against playoff teams this year and went 2-4. (One of those wins came against the Dolphins, who beat the Pats 38-13 earlier in the season; the other came against the Cardinals, in a game that was meaningless to Arizona).

Then the Giants 7th.

I know I know I know I know I know I know IT DOESN'T MATTER where Peter King ranks the Giants. I know I know. Believe me, I know.

Still, let me leave you with this fun fact. Two weeks ago the Eagles, Cardinals, Ravens, and Steelers all gathered for Championship weekend. What do those four teams all have in common?

All four of them lost to the Giants this season. Has this ever happened in NFL history? I'm too lazy to do the research (so much for your stubborn facts, Keatang!), but I strongly doubt it.

In fact, the Giants went 6-1 against playoff teams this year. And the only team they lost to was one they had already beaten (Eagles), and it was the week the Plax thing broke and it was a fairly meaningless game for the Giants. But I'm not bitter.

Pitchers and catchers report in 12 days.