Seriously Super Sunday

I’m a pretty superstitious person, so I tried to offset any undue influence on the results of the Super Bowl by splitting the difference.

In the morning, we had Dunkin Donuts: Advantage Patriots (Dunkin is based in Massachusetts)

Before and during the game we drank Stonewall Cask Bitter: Advantage Giants (The beer is from York, North Yorkshire – I’m conflating Old York with New York. It’s Close enough for me)

So food and beverage is a push. No preferential treatment from my palate.

For my part I would have initially liked to see the Patriots win. I always root for former Dawgs in the pros and there are two on the Patriots roster, so while I’m not a Patriots fan, I had a preference. Plus, the Giants beat my brother’s Packers (my folks lived in Wisconsin for his high school days) to reach the Super Bowl.

Still, what I wanted was a good, competitive game and that’s what I got. But not just for me, the sports fan, but for everyone else drawn in to the game for the spectacle, the pomp, the circumstance and, of course, the ads.

I think there are so many memorable storylines that emerge from this Giants victory that we’ll be talking about this Super Bowl for a very long time.

The most obvious is the whole underdog beats favorite/David versus Goliath (and isn’t it ironic that the Giants aren’t Goliath?) discussion. That’s a good one, for sure. America loves and underdog and the Giants were the biggest one of all time. The road team in each of their playoff games and NEVER favored to win. That’s a pretty steep mountain to climb.

An adjunct to this point is the topic of Perfection. Whether or not it’s possible in this era and whether it should even matter that the Patriots were 18-0 because their season is now a failure because they didn’t go 19-0

It also keeps the Dolphin franchise relevant – albeit the past Dolphins – at a time when that team couldn’t get any worse. And seeing as how my in-laws are Dolphin fans, it makes them happy.

Now I’ve heard two very interesting points made today:

  1. Patriots loss/Giants win as argument against college football playoff [via Rusty]
  2. If you’re selling this, I’m not buying it. The rules are the rules in the NFL and the Patriots didn’t need to go undefeated to win the Super Bowl, they just needed to win the Super Bowl.

    No team exemplifies what the NFL is about more than the Giants. It’s a marathon and not a sprint. Too bad for the Pats that they played their best football in October.

    And as to how this relates to NCAA Football? It doesn’t. There’s no playoff there. Yet.

    Once there is you can argue up and down about perfect seasons and such. You’ll be wrong then too.

    The rules don’t say anything about being undefeated, unbeaten or unblemished. They just say you have to get to the championship game and then win. That’s it.

  3. The Patriots are more interesting for being almost perfect than for being perfect [via Kottke]
  4. Reading this last week, I kind of cocked my head to one side and smirked. This morning I’m nodding and smiling.

    So much more interesting for losing.

Anyhow, my last point is the competitiveness of the game, the drama of that fourth quarter, make this Super Bowl the best ever.

Actually, all 4 of the Belichick-era Patriots Super Bowl games have been decided by 3 points. The final tally of the Belichick era may be that his teams played in the most competitive, entertaining and nail-biting games.

This time, however, the roles of their first Super Bowl victory were reversed. And it was a greater game because of it.

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