Giants Are Patriots' Daddy!

Giants Are Patriots' Daddy!

Pedro Martinez once said, “the New York Yankees are my daddy!” Well, it is now safe to say that the New York Giants are Tom Brady and the Patriots daddy!

For the second time in four years, the Giants beat the Patriots in the biggest game of all – the Super Bowl. The final score Sunday: New York 21 New England 17.

All week long the Giants talked the talk, and Sunday they walked the walk.

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Not that New York played a great game, but they did enough to beat the Patriots for the second time this season.

What’s unfortunate for the Patriots is that their much-maligned defense did not play horribly. But, with the game on the line, they couldn’t stop Eli Manning and the Giants who marched down the field with less than 4 minutes to play to score the game-winning touchdown.

Much like David Tyree in Super Bowl XLVII, Mario Manningham made a spectacular catch on the game-winning drive for New York. It was part of another game-winning drive by Eli Manning whose 4th quarter heroics this year have been nothing short of sensational.

The Giants dominated the first quarter of the game and, ironically, took a 2-0 lead when Tom Brady got flagged for intentional grounding in his own endzone on New England’s first play from scrimmage.

New York upped the lead to 9-0 on a 2-yard strike from Manning to Victor Cruz later in the first before New England finally got things going.

A Stephen Gostkowski field goal early in the second quarter put the Patriots on the board at 9-3. Shortly thereafter, Brady would lead the Pats on a Super Bowl record 94-yard touchdown drive at the end of the second quarter. Brady found Danny Woodhead from 4 yards out to put New England up 10-9 at the half.

The Pats opened up the third quarter with another scoring drive capped off by a touchdown pass to TE Aaron Hernandez to make it 17-9 New England. Little did anyone know that it would be the final score of the game for the Patriots.

New England’s defense played its typical bend-but-don’t-break style holding New York to two third quarter field goals making it 17-15 Patriots after three quarters.

The Pats had their chances in the fourth quarter but Brady threw a costly interception to Chase Blackburn early in the quarter thwarting their first drive. On their second drive they moved the ball into Giants’ territory to the 44-yard line but the usually reliable Wes Welker dropped a pass that would have given the team a first down and put them in field goal range. Zoltan Mesko’s punt was fair caught at the 12 setting up the eventual game-winning drive.

On the first play from scrimmage, Manning hit Manningham for a 38-yard gain to midfield despite what appeared to be good coverage by the Patriots secondary. 8 plays later, Ahmad Bradshaw mistakenly ran it in from 6 yards out to give the Giants the lead.

With only 1 timeout remaining, Belichick clearly told his team to let the Giants score so that Brady and the offense could get the ball back with a chance to win it.

With only :57 seconds left, Brady and the offense couldn’t do it. A misfire here, a dropped pass there and a hail mary that was close, but not close enough and the game was over.

They won Super Bowl XLVII to give the 2007 Patriots their only loss. They ended Tom Brady’s 31-game home winning streak earlier this season at Gillette Stadium and they won Super Bowl XLVI on Sunday.

Yes, the New York Giants are the New England Patriots’ daddy!

NOTES:

-Tom Brady's 16 straight completions in the game is a new Super Bowl record breaking Joe Montana's old record of 13 straight completions in a Super Bowl game.

-Chase Blackburn’s 4th quarter interception of Brady was not necessarily a poor decision by the Pats quarterback, it was poor execution. After Brady had avoided a sack, he scrambled to his right and saw Gronkowski with his hand up well behind Blackburn. However, Brady did not put enough distance on the pass allowing Blackburn to pick it off.

-While Gronkowski did play the entire game, he was clearly hampered by his high ankle sprain.

-It was clear that offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien’s game plan was to utilize his running backs more with the Giants rushing only 4 and with Gronkowski not at 100%. Danny Woodhead picked up much of the slack in the passing game left by Gronkowski’s ineffectiveness.

-Patrick Chung delivered quite a hit on Giants’ WR Hakeem Nicks in the third quarter on a first down play down the sideline. There is no question that Chung’s return to the New England secondary late in the season was a big boost to the New England defense.

-Chad Ocho Cinco, who was inactive for the AFC Championship game 2 weeks ago, had a 21-yard catch on the Patriots first play from scrimmage in the third quarter.

-Eli Manning’s 9 consecutive completions to start the game was a Super Bowl record.

-Giants back-up TE Travis Beckum suffered a torn ACL in the second quarter of the game and, obviously, did not return. Early in the 4th quarter, New York’s starting TE Jake Ballard injured his left knee as well and did not return.

-With all of the talk about the Giants’ front four and how they dominated the line of scrimmage in Super Bowl XLVII, it was the Patriots offensive line that dominated play in the trenches this time around. The problem is that Patriot receivers could not do a good enough job of getting consistently open against New York’s secondary.

-Say what you want about the Patriots, but they have provided for some exciting Super Bowls over the last decade. Super Bowls 36, 39, 39 and 42 all came down to the wire and were each decided by 3 points and Sunday’s game went right down to the wire as well with New England losing by 4.

-In what has clearly become an offensive-oriented league, with the World Championship on the line, the better defensive team won the game.