Super, Super rematch: Giants-Patriots II
SAN FRANCISCO -- It's Super Bowl XLII, Part II.
After spending most of this postseason beating teams that had beaten them, with Charles Bronson-like vengeance, the Giants will have to get used to a new role as they prepare to face the Patriots in Indianapolis in two weeks.
Instead of being the wronged party looking for revenge, the Giants will find themselves facing a team that is trying to even a score.
It was four years ago that the Giants somehow defeated the unbeaten (and believed to be unbeatable) Patriots, 17-14, in Super Bowl XLII. That scarred what would have been a perfect season for the Patriots, who were 18-0 at the time and looking to become football immortals.
How deflating was that loss for the Patriots? The current postseason is the first in which they have won a game since the AFC Championship Game victory that put them in Super Bowl XLII.
Now they're back, after Sunday's 23-20 win over the Ravens. And they get to face the team that crushed their dreams the last time they made it this far.
It was only this season that the teams met in a meaningful game for the first time since that Super Bowl, and once again, it was the Giants who came away with a stunning victory.
The teams traded the lead three times in the fourth quarter -- just as they did in Super Bowl XLII -- and the Giants won the game, 24-20, when Eli Manning hit Jake Ballard with a 1-yard touchdown pass with 15 seconds remaining. The Giants had kept the game-winning drive alive with a 38-yard catch by Ballard on third-and-10, and much was made of the play being similar to the one that David Tyree made in the Super Bowl.
Ballard and Tyree even wore the same number: 85.
"I knew we would win," Brandon Jacobs said after the game. "It definitely took me back to the Super Bowl."
The Giants won that game despite playing without leading rusher Ahmad Bradshaw, leading receiver (at the time) Hakeem Nicks and starting center David Baas.
"Half our offense wasn't here and we still came out and beat a great football team," Osi Umenyiora said at the time.
The Patriots were in good position to win. Tom Brady hit Rob Gronkowski with a 14-yard touchdown pass with 1:36 left to give them a 20-17 lead. But that was just what Manning said he wanted.
"I'd rather be down by three with a minute-thirty than up by four with a minute-thirty with Tom Brady, with their offense on the field," Manning said. "You like those situations where you have a chance to go win the game."
Of course, that's what he did in February 2008 when he engineered the winning drive against the Patriots to become Super Bowl MVP.
This season's win over the Patriots was a high point in the regular season for the Giants, who improved to 6-2, had a three-game winning streak and seemed to be comfortably in first place in the NFC East. But after that game, in which they hoisted Tom Coughlin in the middle of the locker room, they lost four in a row and had to win their final two games to make it into the playoffs.
Since then they've beaten the Falcons and also the Packers and 49ers, two of the teams that defeated them in the regular season and made it so difficult to get back to the playoffs.
Some of the players noted that the last two weeks were like a "Revenge Tour."
Now it's the Patriots' turn to use that motivation. And they've been on tour for four years.
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