Super Bowl XLVI Recap

Picture courtesy of unlimitedradio247.com

Well I learned one thing on Sunday, always go with your gut. In my last post I pointed out all the reason why the Giants were going to win and simply turned the other cheek. In reality, the aspects of the game that people thought would be influential took a back seat to other aspects of the game. People looked at the Giants receiving core and thought they would smoke the Patriots secondary. However, while the Giants averaged 13.7 yards per reception in the regular season, they only averaged 9 yards in the Super Bowl and, if you take away Manningham's ridiculous reception in the games final drive (also the longest play of the game at 38 yards) they averaged only 8.2 yards a reception.

Another presumption people were claiming was that the Giants defensive line would put pressure on Brady and cause him to make bad decisions. In truth, Brady was only sacked twice and hit three times where the Patriots defensive line sacked Manning three times and hit him six times, doubling the amount of the "speed rushing" Giants. No this game wasn't decided by how hard the other team hit the quarterback or the one on one match ups outside the box. Instead it was decided by the Giants complete domination of the clock and field position. New York held the ball for 14 more minutes than the Patriots did and had an average starting field position on their own 25 yard line. New England however had a hard enough time simply starting outside of the opposing red zone with an average field position on their own 16 yard line. It is pretty hard to score many points when you continually have to drive over 80 yards to get a touchdown.

Picture courtesy of wina.com

Along with an exciting finish to the game, many more questions of the future were raised from this game maybe more than any other Super Bowl I can think of. Did Eli solidify his Hall of Fame ticket with the victory? Is Brady still considered one of the greatest of all time? Do be short, yes and yes. Eli has many more years to play and still must play at a high caliber but he's got pretty good chances. And to Brady, show me another quarterback who has played 10 seasons (Brady didn't play his rookie season in 00' and was out of the 08' season with a knee injury) been to the Super Bowls in 5 of those years and won 3 of them. If you can, it's a very short list. Brady top 5 all-time in my book.

Please let me know your thoughts on the game, Eli Manning, Tom Brady, the lack of good commercials and your suggestions for what the Super Bowl committee should do to get the performers of the half time show to stop doing inappropriate gestures on television. Don't know what I'm talking about?
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Super Bowl XLVI Predictions

Well boys and girls, the time as finally arrived. We are now counting down the hours until Eli Manning and the New York Giants take on Tom Brady and the New England Patriots in Indianapolis. The top story these past two weeks surprisingly has NOT been the biggest game of the year, but of the future of Peyton Manning. I will get to that topic on a later date because unlike main stream media, I will not get sucked into the soap opera that has formed within the Colts organization. So on to the game.

The analysts were very divided on their picks. Of the 32 analysts I chose, 16 picked the Patriots and 16 picked the Giants. The analyst picks have not been this divided through the playoffs.
I think this shows that we are going to have a real good game on our hand no matter what. This is a hard one for me to pick. At first glance I want to take the Giants. They are facing the 31st ranked defense in the league defending the pass and with the weapons the Giants have in Cruz, Manningham and Nicks and with Eli playing as well as he is, how could they lose. But the Patriots defense (while statistically flawed) ranks in the top 15 in points allowed. So they may give up a lot of yards, but not a lot of points come from it.

Then I look to these two teams previous match-up where the Giants won 24-20 on the road with a last second touchdown. In that game the Giants claimed to "get in the head" of Brady. If that was true then why did he throw for 300+ yards and 2 TD's where Eli only went for 250 and a pair of TD's (one coming in the last seconds of the game)?

While my gut tells me to go with the "hot" team with the skilled receivers facing an inept secondary, and the defensive line that will cause mayhem up front, I just can't go against The Golden Boy.

Brady rides into immortality on Sunday with a 34-27 Patriots victory.