Daily Archive

I don’t care what people say now: Eli Manning still looks like the kid who eats worms for a dollar, and doesn’t ask for the money up front. However, he’s now won a Super Bowl, and has proven that he doesn’t suck at football.

Big heaping piles of kudos to the New York Giants for doing what most everyone thought was impossible; beat the New England Patriots. Nearly everyone outside of the American peanut gallery that is New England was rooting for it to happen, but I have serious doubts that many of them thought it was possible. I know I didn’t.

New England had won big, they’d won small, they’d won passing, they’d won running. They had won, and they had won them all thus far.

But when it came to the match-up, you couldn’t have asked for a more loaded match-up. On the one hand, you have Tom Brady, who came out of nowhere to win three Super Bowls, the NFL MVP, several NFL records, and found a way to upgrade from Bridget Moynihan to a Victoria’s Secret Supermodel. He did it all, and he made it look good (and easy) when he did it. He had a million dollar smile and a matching set of multi-million dollar Super Bowl rings on his fingers.

On the other side, you had Eli Manning, who looks like the kid who would eat worms for a dollar and not ask for the money up front. At his worst, viewed as a bumbling dunderhead who had no business on a professional football field, and at best, a bumbling dunderhead who meant well and sure would try hard. To start the game, FOX showed a close up of Eli Manning listening to his helmet radio for the playcall, mouth hanging open like he was waiting for somebody to throw a hot dog at it.

And then you had the coaches. The Patriots were represented by Bill Belichick, a coach who cared little for fashion, manners, or general decorum, but relished the opportunity to kick your ass up and down the football field. The Giants had Tom Coughlin, another coach who used to be sort of a dick, but had recently changed his ways. The Repented versus the One Who Refuses to Repent.

When defeat was firmly in the hands of the Patriots, Belichick found himself weaving across the field, edging past photographers and players to find Coughlin for the post-game handshake. The only problem was that there was still a second left on the board. Even when the referee stepped in front of Belichick to notify him that the game wasn’t over yet, he just dismissed him and gave Coughlin a cursory hug before heading for the locker room. Seeing the man who made no effort to be the least bit likeable, trudging to the locker room, leaving his team on the field, it couldn’t have been scripted any better.

Belichick had made no effort whatsoever to be likeable or marginally polite, instead focusing his attentions on winning football games. But now, when that sole aspect of his expertise was taken away, he was just a grousing old man who wanted a hot shower and to be left the hell alone.

Like many Americans, I found myself rooting hard for the Giants. It wasn’t because I especially liked the Giants, or their players, or the way they played football, but because they were playing the Patriots, the team that at times seemed to want to find new ways to win football games, like your 12-year old brother playing his grandfather in Madden.

The Giants, led by worm-eatin’ Eli Manning, found a way to beat the New England Titans. They didn’t do it through flash and panache, they did it by scrounging and scraping and refusing to submit to the awesome will of the Patriots as all their foes before them had. When Eli Manning managed to wrest himself away from half of New England’s defense, he didn’t do it with the gritty, stubbled tenacity of a Brett Favre, he did it with the look of an angry, frustrated nerd trying his damndest not to be pushed around anymore.

And when David Tyree managed to somehow rein that pass in, he didn’t do it with the graceful lunge of Lynn Swann, but it was an awkward, contortioned catch that went from hand to helmet to hand, all while fighting off the rabid Rodney Harrison, who no doubt would have killed a dozen puppies with his teeth in order to wrest the ball away.

Oh, and it should be mentioned that before that catch and his touchdown catch that first gave the Giants the lead, David Tyree hadn’t caught a touchdown all season. He was an underdog on his own team.

It was an ugly play, but probably the one that had the single largest impact in them winning that game. All season long, the Patriots had used and abused their opponents, seemingly opting for a player du jour to have a career game, taunting their opponents like chewed mice in their carefree paws. It wasn’t just that the Patriots always won, it was that they always won and made it look like they always should win.

But the Giants, with that ugly scramble and heave and haul, managed to beat what appeared to be Destiny, and won the god damn Super Bowl. Eli, my hat is off to you, thanks for scoring one for the worm-eaters, the wedgie-takers, the imperfect, awkward, mouth-breathing masses.