Life is magical and full of joy.

They did it. They did it again. Deja three! First Superbowl 42, then this year’s regular season game in Foxboro, then tonight! Big Blue 3, Patriots 0. Eli 3, Brady 0. Coughlin 3, Evil Little Bill 0.

Hot damn. Excuse my enthusiasm. I’d be doing a salsa dance right now, but I did one earlier and I think I threw my hip out. (No, don’t send get well cards, just kidding).

I do swear, though, the similarities between this one and Superbowl 42 were pretty damn eerie. Same teams. Even the same uniforms (Pats in blue, Jints in white). Close game. G-Men down late in the fourth quarter, and Eli leads a desperate, heroic drive. Instead of Tyree’s miracle catch, Manningham’s miracle catch. Instead of Burress, Bradshaw takes it in for the go-ahead touchdown (though this time, the Pats and Evil Little Bill let the Giants score). But there’s still time on the clock for Tom Brady to answer. In 42, the Gmen shut him down in four plays… though on one of them, the third down pass, the ball was just inches beyond Randy Moss’s outstretched fingers. In 46, it looked almost like a replay… but Brady makes the 4th down connection on 4th and 16, and it comes down to a Hail Mary… and the deflected pass is just inches beyond the grasp of a diving Gronk. Whew. And YAY! That sonic boom you heard was my house in Santa Fe exploding with excitement.

Football truly is a game of inches. The Giants did get several lucky bounces this time. They fumbled twice and recovered both times. A third fumble, potentially disasterous, was undone when the Pats had twelve men on the field. And SB 42 turned on Asante Samuel letting a game-ending INT slip through his hands. Well, SB 46 turned on Wes Welker letting a game-ending reception bounce off his.

Even so, the Giants deserved the win. Eli outplayed Brady. The Giants receivers outplayed the Pats receivers. Both defenses played well, but the Giants D were toughest in the clutch, when the game on the line, and the Pats D wilted in the fourth quarter.

And Coughlin outcoached Evil Little Bill. I have to say it… I understand why the Pats parted like the Red Sea to let Bradshaw score on that last Giants TD, but I think it was a bad call by Belichick. It was second and goal, sure. If the Pats stuff Bradshaw, then it’s third and goal. The G-Men probably try another run. Maybe they punch it in, maybe not. Maybe Kevin Glibride tries to outsmart the defense and calls a pass. In either scenario, lots of stuff can happen. Bradshaw might fumble. He’d already fumbled once. A pass might be deflected or intercepted. If the Patriots can hold the Giants for ONE MORE PLAY, they force a field goal attempt. A chip shot, sure. But kickers have been known to miss chip shots, especially when a world championship is on the line. Which Evil Little Bill should know, seeing as how the Pats are only in this SuperBowl because THE RAVENS KICKER MISSED A CHIP SHOT TWO WEEKS AGO. Belichick could have put this game on his D and Lawrence Tynes. Instead he chose to put it on Tom Brady and the Giants D. Which is how SB 42 ended too. And we know how that one worked out.

Bad call, Evil Little Bill. Bad bad call.

I do feel sorry for Wes Welker, a great and gutsy player who made a mistake that will likely haunt him for the rest of his career, and go down in SuperBowl history beside the Jackie Smith drop, Earl Morrell missing Jimmy Orr wide open in the endzone, and Scott Norwood’s wide right. Welker may play for the despised Pats, but he reminds me of Wayne Chrebet, one of my favorite all-time Jets. I hope the Pats fans won’t buckner him.

I also felt sorry for Robert Kraft. I do wish the TV cameras had not turned on him so mercilessly (and so long) after Brady’s last hail mary fell incomplete. He looked so heartbroken. I admit, I love seeing Jerry Jones make his Pissy Face every time the Giants beat the Cowboys, but I can’t hate Kraft the way I do JJ. TV can be cruel at times.

Mostly though, I feel good for all the Giants… Cruz and Nicks played great games, Mario Manningham came through when it mattered most, Chase Blackburn (out of football at mid-season) had a key interception, Tuck and JPP were amazing…

And the Giants are once again world champions!

What a game. What a season. What a year.

Bring on the parade.

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Life is magical and full of joy!

THE GIANTS ARE GOING TO THE SUPERBOWL!!

What a game. What a bloody great game. THIS is what football is supposed to be like. Real smashmouth kickass old-fashioned duel to the death. DAMN but that 49ers defense played great. I don’t think I have ever seen Eli take such a hammering, but he kept getting up and fighting on. And my man Cruz was magnificant as well… though the Niners obviously made adjustments at the half to clamp down on him, or else the win would have been much more lopsided.

The Giants D played great as well. They did not get nearly as many sacks on Alex Smith as I had expected/ hoped for, but they kept him under constant pressure, held Gore in check for the most part, and stifled the 49er receivers… well, except for those two times when Vernon Davis got loose.

But it was turnovers that won the game. Turnovers, and Big Blue’s special teams. I never could have called that. Our special teams have been a weakness all years. Weatherford’s a decent punter but not a great one. Ditto the Scottish Kicker (bad luck to say his name). And we get NOTHING on kickoff returns or punt returns. But it was the coverage teams, and the turnovers we got on those two punts, that made the difference in the end… and once again the Scottish Kicker came through! (My heart did stutter a little when we got that stupid delay-of-game penalty just before the FG attempt, adding five yards to the distance).

Who would ever have thought it? Not me, I admit. Not after that four game losing streak in mid-season and that dreadful December defeat by the Redskins. But then something funny happened. The Real Giants showed up.

So now we’re off to Indy, and a rematch of SuperBowl XLII with the Patriots and Evil Little Bill. Why, it’s like an epic fantasy… the heroes from NYC against the Dark Lord and his minions.

But that’s two weeks away. Right now, I’ll just enjoy the win. And hats off to the 49ers too. They had a great season, and Jim Harbaugh deserves all the credit in the world for turning that team around. I think they will be contenders for years to come.

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And now it’s Championship Sunday in the NFL.

I meant to post about last week’s fantastic Giants win at Green Bay, but there was so much else to catch up on when Parris and I returned from LA, I never got the chance. Needless to say, it was a magical afternoon, and did help take some of the sting out of losing the Golden Globe. Parris and I watched the first half of the game while dressing for the awards banquet, right up to that last second Hail Mary TD that Eli tossed to Hakeem Nicks. I still have trouble believing that one, but it had the both of us screaming. We listened to the third quarter in the limo creeping toward the Beverly Hilton past all the security and the crowds of religious lunatics. But then it was time to go into the banquet. Fortunately, David Benioff (another Giants fan) had an app on his iPhone that allowed him to check the score, and he kept updating the table. I had to bite my tongue to keep from screaming “YEAH! G-MEN” when we finally locked it up.

Hard to believe it has already been a week.

So… another tough game today against the 49ers. And the rain will not help. Here’s hoping the Giants still have some magic left. Win or lose, though, this has been an incredible run. After that dismal loss to the Redskins late in the season, I really thought they were done. I’ve never been so pleased to be proven wrong, wrong, wrong.

As for the early game, the AFC championship, I will be pulling for the Ravens, of course. Should the Giants advance to the Superbowl, I would much rather face Joe Flacco than Tom Brady… and I would prefer the “revenge factor” working on my side. Let’s give the Giants a chance to avenge 2000, instead of having Brady and Evil Little Bill trying to avenge 2007.

But that’s secondary for me. Pats or Ravens, we’ll take either one. First we need to get past the Niners.

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… this week, at least.

A great weekend of playoff football. The Saturday games… well, there was certainly a lot of scoring. A little frustrating for those old school guys like me who like a bit of defense from time to time, but I can’t deny it was exciting. The Saints look especially scary. They killed the G-Men when we went down and played them in Nawlins during the season, and I have a feeling they will kill anyone who has to play them in the Superdome. But the rest of their games are likely to be on the road, so you never know.

Good win for the Texans too. I have no particular rooting interest in either Houston or Cincinnati, so I didn’t much care how that game came out… but it occurs to me that somewhere in Dallas, Jerry Jones is probably making the pissy face at the thought of another Texas team being in the playoffs while his Cowboys are home. So that’s good.

The Steeler/ Bronco game was pretty wild. Really thought that Denver had blown it there, but that overtime was a dagger in the heart. Tebow… what can I possibly say about Tebow that half a million talking heads on ESPN haven’t said already? Three hundred yards passing on ten completions… it beggars understanding… but there you are. Somehow I suspect that Evil Little Bill had a role in this… I’m sure he’d much rather face Tebow than the Steelers D, as wounded as Pittsburgh was.

Of course, my favorite game was the big Giants win over Atlanta. They are weeping in the Vale, but rejoicing on the Wall. And hey, those were the REAL Giants, the ones who have been missing all season. Great swarming D and a smashmouth two-headed running game, that’s what I’ve been waiting for. A shaky beginning, right up to the Atlanta safety, but after that it was complete NYG domination. Another great game by Eli. The Falcons clamped down on my man Victor Cruz pretty hard, but that was okay, Hakeem Nicks and Mario Manningham stepped up to take his place. Had to love that last play of the game too, when Osi sacked not only Matt Ryan but also the Atlanta left tackle, driving him back into his QB and tackling both of them.

Which means another trip to the Frozen Tundra next week. Shades of 2007. I hope it’s forty below zero again, just like it was back then. Should be epic.

((Far be from me to complain, but the officiating sucked all weekend. The Broncos got robbed on that lateral. The Giants were the victim of at least three terrible calls. And the Lions were also screwed by the zebras. I suspect the results of all three games would have been the same in either case, but really, the refs should watch those premature whistles)).

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… when you’re a Giants fan, and you get to kick some Cowboy ass and knock them out of the playoffs to boot.

Quite a game tonight at the Meadowlands. Tony Romo gave a gutsy performance, given that his hand was the size and color of an eggplant, but the Giants pass rushers came to play tonight. So did Eli, Hakeem, and especially Victor Cruz. I’ve been singing this kid’s praises since the beginning of the season. Was I right, or was I right?

The game looked like a laugher in the first half, the Giants dominating on both sides of the ball and running up a 21-0 margin. That all started with Cruz, again, when he turned a short third-and-one pass to the flat into a 70 yard touchdown scamper. And the D did the rest. Osi, Kiwi, Canty, JPP, Tuck… they never gave Romo time to breathe.

Third quarter, though, things started to sour. Suddenly the momentum shifted, as it will in the NFL. Suddenly it was the G-Men going three-and-out and the Cowboys driving down the field. They made it 21-7, stopped the Giants, got the ball back, drove down to the shadow of the goalposts, then went for it on a fourth-and-one instead of taking the chip shot field goal. The Giants stuffed ’em and got the ball on downs, and you’d think that would have shifted the momentum back… but it didn’t. The Cowboys D shut down the Giants in another three-and-out, the punt was short, a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty got tacked on, and wham, bam, Romo led them down and now it was 21-14.

At that point I was sweating bullets and moaning, especially when the Giants got the ball back and went nowhere on their first two downs. Suddenly it was third-and-ten, and it looked as though we’d have to give the ball back to the Cowboys again, with all that momentum. Falter now, and we were staring down the barrel of a tied score. Then the ball was snapped, Eli faded back, rushers came crashing in all around him, it looked dire… but somehow Eli spun away, just as he did in the Superbowl, and he heaved the ball way way downfield, and instead of David Tyree it was Victor Cruz, and the kid went way up in the air above the defenders and snatched that ball for a great catch… and just like that, the Giants had the momentum back.

There was more excitement to come. A fumble near the goal line that stopped my heart (but thankfully the Giants recovered). More Giant sacks. More great Victor Cruz catches. A couple nifty catches from Hakeem Nicks. Great play for Eli. The final strip/ sack of Romo. But that long Eli-to-Cruz bomb, under heavy pressure, just when things looks darkest… that was the fulcrum on which the game turned.

And now the Giants are in the show, and live to play another week, facing the Falcons next Sunday at MetLife Stadium. And Jerry Jones is flying home wearing his pissy face. You have to love Jerry Jones in his pissy face.

Ah, football. Nothing like it.

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… at least for Jets fans.

Pfui. What a terrible way to end the season, losing to the hated Dolphins. With the season on the line, Mark Sanchez played an awful game, and Santonio Holmes failed to show.

Oh, well. It’s “wait till next year” for Gang Green. Rex is going to have to make a lot of off-season changes. I still hold out hope that Sanchez can be the franchise qb we need, but the team needs to get back to the “ground and pound” attack of 2010 and (especially) 2009. We may need another RB to pair with Shonn Green, especially if Tomlinson retires as he threatens. Maybe Joe McKnight can fill that role, but I’m not sure. And the D needs help as well. A safety to take the place of Eric Smith, the weak spot in an otherwise outstanding secondary, and a kickass pass rusher / sack artist so Rex won’t need to blitz so much.

I suspect we’ll have a new offensive coordinator as well, though I am not convinced that Shottenheimer was the problem.

The Dolphins played with a lot of heart, considering they had nothing to play for. Must say, though, the number of empty seats in the stadium was shocking. Almost the entire upper deck appeared empty. That would never happen to a Jets or Giants game, no matter what the team’s record was. I know Florida fans have a bad rep for turning out only for winning teams… certainly true for the Jaguars in the NFL, and for baseball’s Marlins as well… but I’d thought better of Dolphins fans. And the condition of the field was pretty shocking as well. Torn up to hell and gone. Players were slipping and tripping all afternoon, and there were big divots everywhere you looked.

Let’s hope the Giants can salvage some joy for me and the Big Apple tonight. Die, Cowboys, die!

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Life is meaningless and full of pain.

Ever since I got home from New York City, I have been meaning to post about the great games the Jets and Giants played last weekend. But there was so much else to catch up on, and only so many hours in the day, and I never got around to it.

And after the two games I saw today, it would seem kind of pointless. Neither of the New York teams bothered to show up today. Sad, depressing, gutless performances. I can’t believe are really the same teams I watched last week, and the week before.

Next week they play each other. One will win and one will lose, but at this point I hardly think it matters. I don’t think either the Giants or the Jets are going to the playoffs. And if next week’s winner does sneak in, I fear it will be one and done.

Ah, football. It will break your heart.

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Life is meaningless and full of pain.

Eli played a great game. Victor Cruz continues to impress.

But the running game was a no-show, and the Giants D appears not to have turned up in New Orleans at all.

sigh

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