Quarterback Eli Manning will be returning to his 2nd Super Bowl — ironically against the Patriots again — after the Giants overtime win over the stunned Niners.
After 5 years, we are right back where we left off before Super Bowl XLII in Arizona with the NY Giants facing the New England Patiots. However, the look and feel of upcoming Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis is that of two evenly matched teams rather than David vs. Goliath.
It should be a good couple of weeks leading to Indy, but first let’s revisit the AFC and NFC Championships. It was a tale of two kickers as the Ravens Billy Cundiff improbably missed very short make-up field goal as the Patriots thankfully won a hard fought game 23-20 in frigid Foxboro. Next up, Brady and Belichick are hoping to ride the “Myra Express” to a Super Bowl title and get revenge on the upstart Giants.
The Giants got to another Super Bowl under fiery head coach Tom Coughlin by staying the course and never getting too high or too low in a rollercoaster NFL classic. Of course, lots of people will be pointing to the horrible game of the Niners fill-in return man (2 fumbles to the game-winning points for the Giants) but in the end, New York was just plain tougher.
Quarterback Eli Manning overcame several hard hits to move his team on third downs and also into perfect field goal position for kicker Lawrence Tynes’ game-winner in overtime. Speaking of Tynes, the veteran didn’t let “nerves” get to him as he hit his 2nd Super Bowl sending game-winner through the uprights.
So now let the Brady-Manning, Coughlin-Belichick, and Rematch talk start…. Thankfully, this time no one will be talking “perfection” between two far-from-perfect teams that got red-hot at the right time.