18 and d’oh: Now I Can watch Bill Simmons Die in peace

It is crazy but the Patriots built the gameplan that beat them last night. Last night the 07 Pats lost to the 2001 pats. The similarities between 2002 Super Bowl and last night’s was scary.

 

There are the cosmetic similarties, the score, 17-14, both were double digit underdogs, both underdog lost at home to the favorites at home by a single score, both had retread coaches the favorites were record setting offenses, both teams played in a game that was  defined by weather but it went deeper.

 

That night I heard ESPN’s Tom Jackson say how the Giants reminded him of how the pats were a team in every sense of the world. Then I looked at the Giants and realized they had no superstar who piled up crazy stats, Just a whole bunch of the player playing for one another and having fun, with a underdog quarterback.

Both team relied on their defenses to dominate the game and shutdown the unstoppable force. They forced the favorites to throw the ball over 75 percent of the time. Then they pinned their ears back and dropped the quarterback like he Brady drops his baby’s mama. The favorite also insisted on ignoring what was successful that night, wide receiver were picking up ten yards a clip, and tried to win with style, which allowed the quarterback to be beat into the carpet.

But at the end the supposedly superior team scored late in the fourth quarter and the underdogs were doomed to come up short. But Eli was able to distinguish himself from Brady, by actually scoring the game winning touchdown, instead of playing for the field goal.

There is also one small difference, the Giants did not have to use night vision goggles to watch Brady hump Gisele the day before the game, hoping to figure out what he was going to run on second and five at the 50 yard line in the third quarter.

And more importantly this has hurt the mythic power of Boston sports. Like always said the worst thing Boston could do is win the World Series. they lost the lovable loser tag now they are the Yankees with out 27 championships. Sure that 3-0 comeback was historic,  but a New york team stopped a New England team from becoming the greats team ever. A hundred years from now they would have still bean talking about this Patriot team but now they are just another great.  As I said at kickoff, I don’t know what was more important to me the giants wining the Super Bowl or the Pats Losing.

The weirdest part is I think I am starting to get that QB man crush, thinking that Eli would have been the only quarterback who could have won a Super Bowl. Here is how I place Eli in the QB Hierarchy, Peyton and Brady are the living legends,untouchable, then there is the Mcnabb Hasselbeck who have turned losing franchises in to perennial contenders, but then there is Eli. I think his play is much more similar to Brady’s when he won Super Bowl 2 and three, where is not running a offensive juggernaut, but rather taking his team down the field when it matters. I think you have to put Eli ahead of number guys Like Brees and Palmer because he has always shown the ability to win the game in the fourth quarter, and he has been to the playoffs more times than both of them. And as far as Big Ben and Phillip “Ryan Leaf with LT” Rivers, both of those run the third most important par of their team, defense and running game being a higher priorities, and all they were suppose to do s not screw it up.

P.S. Did any body else notice that Brady had a drinking till sunrise voice on Media day, watch the clip when he talks the Bride reporter.

ELI’S Boot and Rally season

Every notice how many people complain about being hung over the day after the Super Bowl? Now maybe I have a genetic advantage being Irish, but don’t you want to yell at them its time for you to boot and rally. Which brings me to Eli, and I realize that Eli is the ultimate boot and rallier in every aspect. Sure he has shown the ability to rally by more fourth quarter backs than big brother Peyton, but this season symbolize the highs and lows felt when somebody boots and rallies.

 

Clearly Eli had his ups and downs this season. You could compare Eli’s season to a lame Friday night at a local bar filled with townies. Sure he was not accurate, similar to the beer layer in your stomach. Then his wide receivers dropped more balls then any team since the turn of the century, look it up, the equivalent of switching to vodka drinks, the beginning of trouble. Then the media starts making ill-informed cheap shots, basically doing shots of alcohol that you already swore off but who have to drink because your boss insists.  Then the Cowboys win the NFC east, your old girlfriend showing up with some guy who looks like a douche bag quarterback with a an earring, that’s right Tony Romo looks like a douche bag. Then comes the bad weather, basically the guy smoking a cheap cigar and being loud and obnoxious, taking away from the ambiance, it was just a bad time all around and the night could not end fast enough.

Then the cell phone rings and its your buddy wants to go to Atlantic City and take down the house, the 15-0 Patriots are coming to town and you are the last team that can beat them. Everybody says you should sit your starters against the Pats because you might get them hurt, just like all the lame people at the bar are telling you should just go home and save your money. Well Eli said fuck it. The Pats Game was the boot; from there on he had the greatest rally of all time. He started with some slots, the Bucs, and he built up bank by winning some jackpots. Then he moves on to the black Jack table, the cowboys, all he did was played one hand and followed all the blackjack rules, really jacked up his bankroll. Then he decided he wanted to play hold’em, the NFC champions game, but this was no Saints v Bear championship with guys who will be forgotten, but he went against a legend, Brett Favre, with that win he could do the Mike McDermott speech from “Rounders” where he talks about beating Jony Chan and that proved he could sit at the final table, the Super Bowl. But it was time to go home and Eli decided to put all of his winnings on 00 on the roulette wheel facing the undefeated Pats who already beat him, figuring if he lost, nothing gained, nothing lost. Rolling and rolling and rolling, and well all know how it ended. But it would have never happened if Eli Never booted and rallied.