Belated Super Bowl Links

Most of the post SB commentary feels like it has centered on who should be blamed for the Patriots losing. The guys at PFT had a link to one of the dumber commentaries I’ve ever read. I won’t link the actual article because it’s so poorly reasoned it isn’t worth giving it more attention than I’ve given it. (For an idea of it’s content, the author actually tries to argue that Tom Brady doesn’t care about winning. And no, that’s not an exaggeration or misrepresentation of what’s in it.)

After reading the source material, I felt it was a pretty lame thing to be linked to at all and PFT would have better served their readers by ignoring it. But they atoned for it in some measure with another post containing 3 links to some excellent commentaries about the game.

I’ll add that I found them to be excellent because I agree in large part with what’s said. Namely, that luck played a not-insignificant role in determining the winner. Twice the Giants put the ball on the ground: one time the ball bounced back towards Giant players trailing the play, the other time a Patriot player missed grabbing the ball and again the Giants recovered. How many times does that happen? Also, take that catch by Manningham at the end of the game. If the pass isn’t perfect, if the timing isn’t perfect, that’s an incompletion or an interception. You can argue that it took skill to throw that pass, and you’d be right. But Eli Manning isn’t a machine capable of throwing perfect passes on every play. He just happened to get enough right, as did Manningham, for it to be a catch.

Luck being a factor also brings up a second point that the articles touch on: that the Giants were just the better team on that day. Their defense was a little better when it needed to be, forcing a safety on the first play of the game and sacking and pressuring Brady a number of other times. Their offense made a few more plays than the Patriots did as well. They had a running attack that helped keep the Patriots off-balance and they were able to counter the Patriots well executed game plan of taking Victor Cruz out of the game.

There’s the old saying that “Sometimes, it’s better to be lucky than good.” The Giants were both last Sunday. That’s why they won, and that’s why pointing fingers at this or that which the Patriots did or didn’t do misses the point: it was a hard fought game that either team could have won, that’s the way great games go. Actually, it’s what defines great games.

And with that, the clock starts ticking towards next season.