Super Bowl: Great week for New York's teams is reminder of work still to do
AP Coach of the Year New York Giants' Brian Daboll, speaks during the NFL Honors award show ahead of the Super Bowl 57 football game,Thursday, Feb. 9, 2023, in Phoenix. Credit: David J. Phillip
GLENDALE, Ariz. – It was a pretty good Super Bowl week for the New York’s football teams here in Arizona.
Together the two of them racked up three big prizes at NFL Honors, sweeping the “optimism” awards, if you will, handed out to the offensive and defensive rookies of the year and the head coach of the year (who also happens to be a rookie). Their collective futures shined bright as the reflection of the sun on the aluminum shell of State Farm Stadium.
Their histories were front and center as well. The Jets added two Hall of Famers to their ranks in Darrelle Revis and Joe Klecko. The Giants had a chance to re-celebrate their Super Bowl XLII victory over the undefeated Patriots which took place here 15 years ago and remains the biggest upset – and one of the best games – of this century.
“Tonight, the New York Jets organization, we actually stole the show,” Revis said proudly – and accurately - of the green wave that rolled over the glitz and pageantry of the NFL’s big production.
That was on Thursday night and the glow of those moments lasted several days.
By the time Sunday evening rolled around, however, those chest-thumping victories started to look like fourth-quarter guacamole. They were overshadowed by the one element that always comes along and eclipses anything and everything that took place in the days leading up to kickoff.
The reason we all pay attention in the first place.
The game itself.
That belonged to Kansas City and Philadelphia, not New York, New York.
Thursday may have been one of the great days in Jets history. The game here in 2008 may have been one of the great wins in Giants history. But until they get back to showing up on the field at the end of Super Bowl weeks, none of their appearances on the periphery really matter.
Brian Daboll, who has participated in five previous Super Bowls as an assistant coach for the Patriots but found himself inside the circus tent of the days leading up to the game for the first time in his career, clearly expressed his preference after claiming his award on Thursday night.
“I’d rather be playing down here,” he grumbled with the consolation prize in his hands, ironically a trophy of gold rather than the sterling silver of the Lombardi. “I’m gonna sit back, eat a tray full of nachos, drink a six pack, and then I’ll start my diet. I’m just going to watch (the Super Bowl) as a fan.”
How long will it be until Daboll or Sauce Gardner and Garrett Wilson aren’t among the millions of spectators for this event? The answer to that question will likely come in the next few months. The offseason officially begins tomorrow and both the Giants and Jets are poised to be making decisions that will define their immediate futures.
The Jets will be searching for a quarterback who can lift what they believe is an otherwise championship caliber roster, and there re plenty of options for them. Aaron Rodgers is the big fish and if the Jets truly are the “All Gas, No Brakes” franchise they think they are, Rodgers is the AGNB quarterback. Other quarterbacks could work and Derek Carr, Jimmy Garoppolo, along with a handful of other serviceable but less sexy options will be backup plans, but landing Rodgers puts the Jets immediately in the conversation for Super Bowl LVIII.
The Giants think they have their quarterback in Daniel Jones. That’s half the battle. Now in the coming weeks they have to figure out how to keep him (he is free agent as of March) without destroying their financial ability to build around him. Unlike the Jets, the Giants are probably not one player away from a contender… but they are heading toward that class.
This season (and the last few, particular throughout the postseasons) have only served to prove that the NFL is a quarterback-driven league full of haves and have-nots. Even slightly damaged players who can play the position at a high level can carry their teams to the Super Bowl. Sunday’s game showed that as Patrick Mahomes on a less-than-perfect ankle and Jalen Hurts with a less-than-ideal shoulder faced each other.
There is, though, a threshold. Might Brock Purdy, the once-irrelevant rookie, have been here if his elbow had withstood the hit from Haason Reddick early in the NFC Championship? We’ll never know.
A former Super Bowl-winning executive was chatting on Radio Row this week when the theory that there are “generally 53 reasons” why some coaches succeed and others do not was proposed to him. In other words, it’s all about the players and the roster depth.
“No,” he said, “there is generally one reason.”
In other words, it’s all about the quarterback. Whether a team builds around that player (the way the Giants seem intent to do) or plugs one in on a team already brimming with talent (a la the Jets’ plans), it doesn’t matter.
If the two New York teams are able to get their strategies right, they might soon find themselves playing on a Super Bowl Sunday in the not so distant future.
If they can’t? Well, they can always enjoy strutting up and down the red carpets that lead to the front doors of the big game without being able to get through the bouncers.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
