After replay, Giants-Patriots Super Bowls don't matter much this week
Giants wide receiver David Tyree makes one of the most memorable catches in Super Bowl history, outfighting Patriots safety Rodney Harrison and pinning the ball against his helmet during Super Bowl XLII on Feb. 3, 2008. Credit: AP
The Giants may be doing their best to try to avoid relying on the history they share with the Patriots, but sometimes it just can't be avoided.
As the players sat in the team cafeteria for lunch on Wednesday, the televisions were tuned - as usual - to the NFL Network. And there on all the screens was a replay of Super Bowl XLII. While Eli Manning sipped his soup at a table, he and his teammates were able to look up and watch him spin away from a sack and hit David Tyree down the middle of the field for the most memorable play of the game.
"I think it's different teams from those games and over the past eight years, we've played them four times, a lot of new faces on their team and our team," Manning said. "You can look at the way the game was called a little bit or just a theme to what was going on, but not much in Xs and Os. Hey, it's a game, we've got to go out there and we've got to play well."
The Giants have, winning their last three meetings with the Patriots including two in the Super Bowl. Even their loss in the 2007 regular-season finale wound up being more of a victory for the Giants than anyone would have thought at the time.
Since that 2007 game, the Giants are the only team the Patriots have not beaten.
"We see them every four years and just kind of caught them on the right nights, I guess," Manning said. "They're always very good and talented teams. They're well-coached and good players. So hopefully we can play well and catch them on a good night again."
For many of the Giants players, those events are ancient history. They walk past murals on the walls in the building from those games and see footage from them. They see the banners hanging in the field house with the names of all the players and coaches on those championship squads. But they were in high school or college, for the most part, when the events took place.
"It doesn't mean anything to me," linebacker Devon Kennard said. "It's all about here and now. Obviously the Giants have done some good things against the Patriots in the past, but that doesn't determine anything right now on Sunday. We have to go out there and play a really good team that is 8-0 and on fire and defensively we have to stop one of the best offenses in football. That's all I'm worried about."
Still, neither Kennard nor anyone else was going to ask to have the channel changed in the cafeteria.
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.
