Pats and Giants know the best team doesn't always win

INDIANAPOLIS -- The Giants and the Patriots have won a combined six Super Bowl trophies. So which of their teams was the greatest in franchise history? For both, you could argue convincingly that it was one that did not earn the Lombardi Trophy.

The 2007 Patriots were 18-0 and one helmet-sticking catch away from being considered the greatest team of all time. But they lost in Super Bowl XLII (to the Giants, you may recall) and were bounced out of the area where the 1972 Dolphins, 1985 Bears and the Steelers of the late 1970s reside.

"If. That's the word," Patriots running back Kevin Faulk said of that team, which set all kinds of offensive records and played only the second perfect regular season in the Super Bowl era. "If we had won the Super Bowl. It didn't happen. It's an afterthought now."

Just like those Patriots, the 2008 Giants were on the verge of earning some prestigious recognition. They were 11-1 -- shortly after Plaxico Burress accidentally shot himself and essentially put a bullet through their chances of repeating -- and they had two 1,000-yard running backs with an almost impenetrable defense. But they lost four of their last five games, including an early ouster from the playoffs, and it tarnished what they had been able to do.

"The work wasn't done," cornerback Corey Webster said. "We can't talk about the '08 season because we didn't finish it . . . It just goes to show that it doesn't matter who leads the race early, it's the person who endures the race and keeps getting better and better throughout the season."

The lesson: You need a ring to be considered a great team. But you don't have to be a great team to get the ring.

Look at these two teams that will play in Super Bowl XLVI Sunday night. Both are extremely flawed. The Patriots earned the top seed in the AFC, but they had the league's second-worst defense in the regular season and lost three games in a row. The Giants had the league's worst rushing attack and for most of the season played with a defense that was equal to the Patriots in inferiority. They lost four straight, and if they beat the Patriots, their nine regular-season wins would be the fewest for a Super Bowl champion.

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And yet, whichever team hoists the trophy Sunday night can confidently call itself greater than those far more talented, consistent, productive teams that did not.

"It's funny how this league works," Giants defensive end Dave Tollefson said. "I always talk about that 2008 team and how special it was, but things just have to work out circumstantially. We played so well for so long that season and we fell off as the postseason was coming along and you really kind of find out what this league is all about when you go through that kind of stuff. When the time really matters, you have to be on point. Those first 16 games have zero bearing on the playoffs . . . The first half, the first two-thirds of the season, you just have to get some wins so you're in the hunt toward the end."

There are plenty of examples of teams dominating regular seasons but coming apart in the playoffs, from the 2010 Colts to the 2011 Packers.

"It's not about how good you are coming into the season. The Cowboys prove that every year," linebacker Mathias Kiwanuka said. "It's not about how many wins you have during the regular season or how many stars you have on the roster. It's about whether or not you win the big game. That's the story at the end of the year."

There have been a lot of comparisons made this week between the 2007 Giants and this current edition, and rightfully so. But for a few months in late 2008, that team may have been playing better football than any other Giants team of the last two decades.

"For the most part of that season, we were the best team in the NFL," offensive lineman Kevin Boothe said. "But it doesn't matter if you're not playing your best at the end of the year, which we weren't."

They are now. Both teams are. But only one can be great.