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Giants Sock Perfection In The Solar Plexus

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By MARTIN FENNELLY | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 4, 2008

GLENDALE, Ariz. - Film this.

And so, boys and girls, the republic has been saved.

The Great Satan has been defeated.

Hit Erase on your camcorders.

Bill Belichick and his perfect Patriots are no more.

Mark it down: 18-1.

The cheats got beat.

The 1972 Dolphins can start the conga line. Don Shula can stop scratching that asterisk on the Lombardi Trophy. Sen. Arlen Specter can get back to his day job. Peyton Manning can get on with being Eli's brother. And some guy named David Tyree, who was no one Sunday morning, never has to buy a drink or dinner in New York for the rest of his life.

Stand and cheer, America.

This one's on the Giants.

Shocking Patriots Was Enough

For good measure, one last reminder that winners never cheat and cheaters never win (well, they never win 19 times), New York Giants receiver Plaxico Burress, who had guaranteed this win, pulled in the winning touchdown with just 35 seconds left for a stunning 17-14 victory in Super Bowl XLII, which resounded through New England like the football equivalent of a Bucky Dent homer.

This was arguably the greatest upset in Super Bowl history, at least this side of Jets-Colts, and one everyone outside New England wanted it. Up in Patriots Nation, where they drop their R's, they can't say Cheater. The rest of us could.

"We shocked the world," ageless Giants defensive end Michael Strahan said. "Hell, we shocked ourselves."

Shocking the Patriots was enough.

It takes an awful lot to make a team from the big, bad Apple lovable, but who wasn't pulling, just a little, for the "little Giants that could" on Sunday night?

The Patriots might have been the most hated team in the land, up there with the Yankees, as they set out this week. Winning and winning will do that. So will taping and taping.

"Win or lose, we're going to make history," Patriots quarterback Tom Brady said earlier this week.

They made the other kind.

To go with the greatest upset came one of the great plays in football history, maybe greater than anything in the 41 Super Bowls that came before Sunday. It was Who Wants It More? in big block letters.

On the Giants' winning drive, on third-and-5, there came The Moment: little Eli, out-Bradying Brady, pulling himself out of Patriot clutches, spinning, running and heaving it downfield, to our man David Tyree, who caught four balls all season, but who already had caught a touchdown Sunday.

Tyree jumped high, as high as he could go. Eat your heart out, Lynn Swann. Despite being challenged by two Patriots, including bad dude Rodney (late hits, HGH suspension) Harrison, Tyree, in a fit of justice, somehow pulled down the ball for an amazing 32 yards that socked perfection in the solar plexus. It never recovered.

"That play alone took a few years off my life," Strahan said.

What a remarkable play. What a remarkable finish. What a remarkable lesson.

"We didn't treat them like a Greek myth or nothing," Tyree said.

No Need For An Asterisk Now

The Patriots were a great team, filled with men with great big hearts, which is what made SpyGate such a shame. It never had to be this way.

They'll win another Super Bowl. But they couldn't be allowed to win this one. They were never perfect.

Now there's no need for an asterisk. The Patriots are an afterthought.

The lesson has been taught. It was taught by a wild card. It was taught by a team that won 10 road games this season to get here. It was taught despite old Patriots magic. Brady, finally shaking off a ferocious Giants pass rush that gave him more than a few new dimples, threw to Randy Moss for a go-ahead score with just 2:42 left.

But the winning score was caught by someone who had dared to say these gods could be beaten, and who couldn't even practice this week (bad knee, bad ankle). But when it mattered, Plaxico Burress was wide open, and the case of the Perfect Patriots was closed.

19-0 was dead.

Let Freedom Ring.

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