With the Conference Championships officially in the books, the table is now set for Super Bowl 42 and will feature two cities and teams who are quite familiar with one another both on and off the main stage. Though the rivalry between Boston and New York sports has been well documented over the years mainly through the rich history of arguably sports' most heated rivalry --Yankees-Red Sox, in 2008, the New York Giants and New England Patriots added another chapter to the rivalry, this time in the form of football. With the Patriots only one win away from being enshrined into football immortality, attempting to become the first NFL team to win the Super Bowl with a perfect season since the '72 Miami Dolphins and the first team in NFL history to do so since the adoption of a 16-game regular season schedule in 1978, there was only one team standing in their way -- the New York Giants. Despite being 12-point underdogs, the Giants pulled off the biggest upset in Super Bowl history with the help of some late-game heroics by Eli Manning, defeating New England, 17-14.
And while the storylines differ from those in 2008, both teams are in many ways the same teams they were then with the lone exception of New England's defense which is no longer the formidable force they once were. After becoming only the third team to finish the regular season 9-7 and reach the Super Bowl, the Giants will try to distance themselves from the other two teams who've achieved that feat ('79 Rams and '08 Cardinals both of whom lost) by becoming the first to win it. Giants quarterback Eli Manning who will match older brother Peyton Manning this Sunday with two Super Bowl appearances, will have a chance to surpass his brother in Lombardi Trophies with a win. Coincidentally, the game will be taking place in Lucas Oil Stadium, the same stadium Peyton's Indianapolis Colts call home and will be against Peyton's arch-rival Tom Brady.
Meanwhile, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady who's coming off one of his worst games in recent memory, will tie the great John Elway for the most Super Bowl appearances with five, and will have a chance to cement himself among two of the game's all-time greats -- Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw as the only quarterbacks in NFL history to win four Super Bowl's. And though his team is once again favored to win the Super Bowl, this time by much less than in '08, one thing to consider is that the Patriots who enter Sunday's match-up winners of their last 10 games, have not faltered since their week 9 loss to these very Giants who stormed into Foxboro and escaped with a 24-20 victory. And while the Patriots have only gained steam without looking back since their November 8 loss to New York, the Giants have turned on the jets in their own way by keeping their playoff hopes alive with must-wins in the final two games of the regular season followed by a double-digit shellacking of the Atlanta Falcons and back-to-back wins on the road against the Green Bay Packers and the San Francisco 49ers.
With more than half of their wins this season orchestrated by Eli Manning's record-setting 15 fourth-quarter touchdowns, one thing is certain and that is that no lead is insurmountable for Eli to overcome when he's clicking on all cylinders. At least not that we've seen this year anyway. With that said, I think we'll see more of the same with New England getting off to an early lead and Eli once again coming through during crunch time with an MVP-like performance to lead the Giants to their fourth Super Bowl win in franchise history with a 24-20 win. Game time is set for 6:30 eastern and can be seen on NBC (Ch. 3).
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