The Superbowl represents the culmination of a five month season where thirty-two teams in two leagues (NFC and AFC) and eight divisions play weekly games (sixteen games per team) for a chance at making the playoffs, where the best twelve compete for a chance at the Big Game - one team from each league. Billions (!) of dollars are at stake in the functioning of these leagues, and the hopes and dreams of people both on the field and at home rest in the events following each snap of the ball from the center to the quarterback.
Other professional sports have rabid followings, yes, but the NFL is by far the most powerful and most watched single sports organization in the world. Fans spend the entire day in the stadium parking lots drinking, cooking, celebrating and painting their bodies in preparation for a three and a half hour dance that is at once violent, graceful, and thrilling. Working people, people without money to burn, spend hundreds of dollars to attend the spectacle - seeing a game can be the highlight of a year. Keep in mind, football is played during the cold part of the year and most stadiums are open-air. Fans sit in freezing cold weather for those three and a half hours and most are on their feet cheering throughout the game. The stadiums fit upwards of a hundred thousand people, yet, for teams like the Patriots tickets are not easy to come by. A lot of workplaces buy tickets before the season starts and raffle them off as a reward to employees.
But I think most people who don't like/care about football at least kind of know how huge it is and are not convinced that makes it meaningful or worthy of their attention.
Let's talk about the teams.
The New York Giants won their last Superbowl in 1991 (Superbowl XXV). This championship was won under the direction of Bill Parcells (who coached the Patriots to a Superbowl in 1996, where they were defeated by Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers). They were last in a Superbowl in 2001 (XXXV) which they lost to the Baltimore Ravens. They are one of the longest standing NFL teams, having joined the league in 1925. The Giants of this year were 10 and 6, one of the two teams in their league to make the playoffs without winning their division (Wild Card teams). To get to the Superbowl, they beat the Cowboys, who had beaten them twice in two meetings during the regular season and also defeated Brett Favre and the Packers, who with the Cowboys were the two favorites to win in the NFC this year. They are led by a very tough defense (led by Michael Strahan, who has the record for most sacks in a season [a sack is when a player tackles the quarterback while he still has the ball]) that is great at getting to and hitting the other team's quarterback, two very talented young running backs, and Eli Manning, younger brother of Peyton Manning, who is playing in his first Superbowl.
The Patriots have had a perfect season so far under head coach Bill Belichick. They were 16-0 in regular season contests (first team to do so with a 16 game season) and have had little difficulty winning the two playoff games needed to get to this point. The Patriots are a very complete team that likes to, and has historically always liked to, win with the passing game - depend on the arm of their quarterback. This year that has worked particularly well because of the three new receivers the Patriots acquired, most notably, Randy Moss, who will certainly be a Hall of Fame player. The defense is full of veteran players like Rodney Harrison, Richard Seymour, and Tedi Bruschi, and is very good at adapting to changes in the other team's offense. Collectively, they've seen just about every situation the NFL has to offer.
The Patriots also have Tom Brady. In New England, Tom Brady is practically worshipped. When he came in during the 2001 season (an unknown backup, drafted relatively low from college for example compared to the man he replaced) to replace a (very badly) injured Drew Bledsoe, the Patriots seemed to never lose again. Brady plays better under pressure than any quarterback...ever. He has been in many situations where the game was drawing to an end and the team needed one more score to win. He delivers every time. With the new wide receivers the team has acquired this year, he has really blossomed, throwing the most touchdowns in one season of any quarterback in league history - while at the same time only being intercepted (the other team catching one of your passes) eight times in the 16 games - the lowest he has thrown in a season yet. Tom Brady is a good looking guy who always has a smile for the cameras and is always respectful and humble, but damn it, if you are on the other team he must be a terrifying son of a bitch.
I don't have time to talk about Belichick. Since he arrived in 2000 he has turned the Patriots into, probably, the best football team in history. Brady was instrumental to this, no doubt, but Bill is the mind behind it all. The way he plans for what every team they play is going to throw at them, the way he anticipates...I won't attempt to say why I think he is so good because I can't even comprehend how good he is. He makes other coaches look like amateurs. They are not in the same league that he is.
I hope it is clear from what I have written so far that the mechanics of a football game are incredibly complex and being a part of the machine takes brains - never mind how smart you have to be to run an offense or defense or an entire team. Every one of the eleven players a team fields for a given play has to be in just the right place for it to turn into a gain of yards. Every player is responsible for watching and attempting to physically manage several others. I have tried to describe everything in the simplest terms thus far and if I tried to go into all the matchups, player v. player, that will be important in this game my post would be pages and pages long. A lot of time people summarize by looking at the quarterback matchup, and so will I.
I've already spoken about Brady. He literally intimidates the other team into making mistakes which he notices and exploits. He is the youngest player ever to have won three championships and his record as a player is beyond reproach.
Eli Manning, however, is a good player with a lot to prove. He was the first player selected from college in the 2004 draft from the University of Mississippi by the San Diego Chargers. He was apparently very unhappy to be with San Diego and was traded the same day to New York. Tom Brady prevented his brother Peyton from making it to the Superbowl with the Colts several times until last year when Peyton won the Big Game (good for him). Peyton and Eli's father, Archie Manning, was a college football legend, also a quarterback for Ol Miss. Apparently being a good quarterback is genetic thing, at least in this family. Eli, playing for an NFC team, is fortunate to have not needed to get past Tom Brady to make it to the Superbowl. His numbers in the NFL so far have not made him a standout but like Brady at the time of his first Superbowl he is growing and getting better - in the second half of this past season he played exceptionally well and was one of the main reasons the Giants were able to sneak into the playoffs.
In playing offense, you basically have a simple decision with each play - whether you're going to run the football from the line of scrimmage (where the ball is set up) or whether you're going to try to pass it downfield to an open player. The Patriots, as I mentioned, have been winning with the pass game. The Giants this year are the type of team that is more inclined to run the ball a lot. Both teams should stay true to this form in the Superbowl because the Patriots defense is most weak to running and the Giants' most weak to passing. They say that championships are won with defense. That's true, but I think this championship will be won with offense.
The Patriots and Giants played in the last game of the regular season and it was the closest game the Patriots played all year, they won by only three points - a field goal. In playoff games, the Patriots have played a lot of teams that were of a similar calibre and who could compete with them, many times they have gotten behind and looked as though they were in trouble.
It is the pressure of these big games that makes them different from regular season games. There are cameras everywhere, even more so than in regular games, millions of people are watching and the futures of the teams are at stake. (what their draft picks and schedules will be next year most directly) People's careers are often on the line in games like this. Individual players and coaches have rich histories playing against each other and there are lots of grudges going on up and down the organizations. The statistics are not what make the Patriots impressive to me, rather, it is their ability to play cleanly and effectively in the face of limitless distractions. The Giants have to rise to the occasion. I am not counting them out, that would be foolish. But they are basically coming into the Patriots' environment even though the game is in Arizona. If the game gets close, and Brady has a chance to close it out with a final minute score, will they be able to stop him?
Professional football players play as close to perfect football as there is. But they are still human beings. The Superbowl brings out emotions in everyone involved. Being at the center of it all must be the most intense experience of a player's life. I don't think anyone could ever get used to it, but Tom Brady is as used to it as any quarterback in the league could be. I think the difference in this game will be that Eli Manning is not prepared for a situation where it gets close and tense - a situation that would have to arise for his team to win. One little mistake can change the game entirely - even win or lose it. I am betting that Eli Manning will make at least one big mistake and that will be all it takes for the Patriots to beat him and the Giants.
Not everyone's going to love football. But there is so much that goes into it in terms of physical human effort, thought, attention, and emotion that it is worthy of the highest respect.
When people look down their noses at it, usually people who don't understand it at all, it makes me want to tackle them.
Patriots v. Giants. Symbolic?
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