God, what a great football game!

I'm a big fan of watching the Super Bowl with friends and enjoying the last football game of the season, but usually the play isn't all that interesting.  Until now, there's really only been two Super Bowls I've remembered with any clarity: When the Rams won in 2001, and when they lost to the Patriots in 2002 by a field goal courtesy of Adam Vinatieri. Until now.

Sunday night's game was one the best football games I've ever seen.  I'm no Giants fan; I don't love Eli Manning like I love Peyton, and in fact went into the game rooting for Tom Brady and the Patriots.  But I could not resist the draw of the underdog Giants, calmly marching up and down the field, sacking Tom Brady – Tom Brady! Sacked! In the Super Bowl! More than once! – and generally demonstrating that they could play better football.  By that heart-stopping near-sack in the 4th quarter, I was sitting on the edge of my seat, fist clenched, rocking back and forth saying, "Come on, come on, come on!" to Manning and his Giants.  The New York Times describes it thus:

More than Eli’s 5-yard scoring pass early in the fourth quarter to Tyree, more than his 13-yard scoring pass to Plaxico Burress in the final minute, the play that will be replayed and discussed endlessly came when Manning scrambled on third-and-5 from the Giants’ 44-yard line with about a minute left. It seemed as if he was about to be sacked, and that would have been devastating. Would-be tacklers grabbed at him, clutching his shirt and tugging it. “You try to get small and see if you can squeak through,” Manning said. He kept moving to his left, ducked out of a scrum, found open space and launched a soaring pass toward Tyree at the Patriots’ 25-yard line. “The ball hung up there,” Manning said with great understatement. Tyree leaped in the air and brought it down with his hands, which pressed the ball against his helmet. The Giants had a first down with 59 seconds left. Four plays later they scored to beat a team that was 18-0.

When Manning shook free of that tackle, when Tyree caught that ball and hung onto it, bent over backwards and clutching it to his helmet, I stood up and whooped. Talk about some exciting football!  Now that's what I want to see at the Super Bowl.  What a play! And what defense! The Giants defense really won that game, because even down as they were, Tom Brady could have marched over just about any other team in the league and used that 35 seconds to roll from one end of the field and into the end zone.  Forget about The Greatest Show on Turf days – that was exciting football (if you're a Rams fan) but it was fairly one-sided. This was a knucklebiter right to the very end.  Who couldn't celebrate the Giants after that game?

There was a lot of schadenfreude in St. Louis yesterday morning from a city still bitter over a nasty loss.  Several of the morning talk shows mentioned the recent allegations that the Patriots videotaped the Rams practicing before beating them in the Super Bowl.  Plenty of other people around say that the Pats cheated during the game, grabbing jerseys and doing other illegal things that didn't get called by the refs.  (I won't say that – three turnovers and you can't expect to win the Super Bowl, that's what I say, even with Jeff Wilkins kicking.) St. Louisans are not willing to let go of that particular grudge, so even though the Rams had yet another terrible season this year, there was a lot of joy in the Gateway City last night and today.

As for me and my Patriots fan-dom? Well, I figure that this morning Tom Brady is still smart, gorgeous, and a helluva football player with three Super Bowl rings already (oh yeah, and dating a supermodel), so it's not like his life is all that bad.