Top 10 Super Bowl storylines
Updated: January 21, 2008, 11:27 AM EST 18 comments RSS digg blog email print Did you ever wonder what happens to all those T-shirts and caps when events don't play out exactly as expected?
Like, for example, all the "Green Bay Packers 2007-08 NFC Champions" paraphernalia that had to be secreted away from Lambeau Field on Sunday night.
Maybe it goes to the same place as all those ledes written by sportswriters trying to get a jump on their deadlines.
With the Super Bowl coming to the state that gave us the O.K. Corral, can you imagine all the Old Gunslinger storylines that just disappeared into the dustbin of history when Brett Favre was picked off by Corey Webster in OT on Sunday?
So we won't have ol' No. 4 riding into town for one last shootout, but we will have these 10 storylines as the road-ragin' Giants take on the perfection-pursuing Patriots.
1. The rematch
With the Vegas line opening at Patriots -13.5, the question will be how can the Giants hang with New England?
Well, for starters by doing pretty much doing what they did in Week 17 to build a 28-16 lead, the largest deficit the Patriots faced all season.
In that coming-of-age performance by Eli Manning, the Giants were able to do what no other Patriots opponent could this season: score five touchdowns. As the Chargers learned on Sunday and the Jaguars the week before that, if any team wants to have a shot at upsetting the juggernaut, it had better come away with touchdowns in the red zone.
Manning was brilliant in the red zone in the first meeting, throwing a TD pass on each of the Giants' four trips inside the 20.
Which brings us to...
2. Brady vs. Manning (again)In 2003, 2004 and 2006, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning ended each other's season. The 2007 season ends for Brady and Eli Manning on the same day no matter what happens Feb. 3, but the kid brother will be trying to do what big bro did last year: outsling Brady over 60 minutes.
Check out the quarterbacks Eli Manning has outplayed as he's climbed the ladder to the Super Bowl: former Pro Bowler Jeff Garcia, current Pro Bowler and $67.5-million-dollar man Tony Romo and Hall of Famer Brett Favre. In the first two playoff games, Manning's QB rating was more than 50 points higher than his counterparts, and on Sunday — despite several drops — Manning out-rated Favre, who threw two picks, including the game-loser in OT.
If Manning outplays league MVP Tom Brady, the Giants' ridiculous run — a record 10 straight road wins — may just end with the Lombardi Trophy.
And it's not out of the question. On Sunday, Brady was picked off three times in comparatively balmy weather.
3. A country for old men
With its dry, warm weather and short par-4s, Arizona may just be the most hospitable place in America for old folks.
Which is just fine with Junior Seau, Rodney Harrison, Michael Strahan and Amani Toomer.
Seau, 39, and Harrison, 35, keyed a Pats D that did not allow a touchdown in the AFC Championship game. Seau had a sack and knifed through the line for a key third-down stop inside the 5. Harrison was not only his usual battering-ram self in run support, but he consistently put pressure on Philip Rivers with his perfectly timed blitzes.
Strahan, 36, was held in check by Green Bay, but amassed an absurd 15 solo tackles in the first two rounds of the playoffs. One week after scoring twice against the Cowboys, Toomer, 33, made a diving 23-yard catch to set up the Giants' final touchdown.
Throw in 41-year-old Giants punter Jeff Feagles, making his first Super Bowl appearance after 20 years in the league, and there figures to be some very happy football geriatrics on Feb. 3.
4. The grouch v. the ex-grouchWho would have thought that when Tom Coughlin finally got to the Super Bowl, he'd be Mr. Nice Guy in the coaching comparison?
On the verge of losing the team with his "if you're five minutes early, you're late" discipline, Coughlin pulled a mid-life mellow heretofore unseen in the professional coaching ranks. Even guys like Bill Parcells and Mike Ditka, whose doctors ordered them to take it easy after heart attacks, couldn't pull off the spiritual shift that Coughlin has undergone this season.
Strahan, who chaffed under Coughlin to the point of considering retirement, has even acknowledged that his coach now cracks jokes. Jokes! It may be the only turnaround more impressive than that of the team.
Bill Belichick, however, hasn't changed a bit. And don't expect him to.
5. Plax and the SmurfsPlaxico Burress is a beast. He is 6-foot-5, 232 pounds and he can run. He caught 11 passes on Sunday for 154 yards, and would have been pushing 200 had the ball not squirted out upon hitting the ground after a sprawling catch at the end of the first half.
The Patriots' corners are not beasts. They are Smurfs. Asante Samuel is listed at 5-10. Ellis Hobbs at 5-9.
Plaxico Burress' height may cause some major problems for the Patriots' corners. (Jamie Squire / Getty Images)
They have struggled with big receivers in the postseason. The 6-5 Vincent Jackson had six catches for 93 yards against them one week after the 6-6 Matt Jones and 6-4 Ernest Wilford both caught touchdown passes against them for the Jaguars.
In Week 17, Burress set the tone with a 52-yard catch on the Giants' second play from scrimmage. Hobbs had perfect coverage on the play, but was simply too short to be much of a bother when Burress went up to get the ball.
Burress finished with four catches for 84 yards and two touchdowns. If Bill Belichick tosses and turns in the next two weeks, it will no doubt be with thoughts of the monstrous No. 17 in his head.
6. Those one-dimensional Patriots
Injuries to Laurence Maroney and Sammie Morris, coupled with the why-bother-running success of the Patriots passing game, led New England to long spells of one-dimensionality this season.
It was during this eight-week midseason stretch without a runner exceeding 75 yards that the conventional wisdom cemented: The Pats won't run the table because they can't run the ball.
Nobody is saying that anymore. Since Week 15, Maroney has gone over 100 yards four times in five games. The only team to hold him under 100 was the Giants, who held him to 46 yards on 19 carries, but he did punch it in twice against them.
Over his last five games, Maroney has rushed for 550 yards, including back-to-back 122-yard efforts in the playoffs, and six touchdowns.
On Sunday, with Brady struggling against the Chargers' active defense, Maroney carried the team on his back, ripping off 106 yards in the second half as the Patriots played keep away and chewed up over 20 minutes of possession after intermission.
7. Where's Randy?Against the Jaguars in the divisional round, it was understood that the Jags were bracketing Randy Moss and giving the Patriots the underneath stuff to Wes Welker and Kevin Faulk.
But on Sunday in the conference title game, the Chargers were mixing up their looks, sending blitzes and playing Moss straight up at times. And still, he was invisible.
Moss had one catch for 18 yards and one drop. On a third-and-three in the first half, he ran a soft, rotten banana of a square-in that was easily jumped and batted down by Quentin Jammer. The guy who spent the season driving corners off him with sharp routes was nowhere to be found (actually it was Vincent Jackson).
Moss' head may have been elsewhere. But considering the Patriots needed every bit of his six-catch, 100-yard, 2-TD performance to beat the G-Men in Week 17, he'd better get his mind right over the next two weeks.
8. Maybe Tiki Barber was the problem
Speaking of Coach Coughlin, one player who missed out on the transformation may now be wishing he had spent the last year on the field instead of ripping his former team.
Tiki Barber's comments about Eli Manning and Tom Coughlin did not turn out to be prophetic. (Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)
For years, Tiki Barber was the Giants' best player. Some days he seemed like the only above-average player on the team. When he retired at 31 and in good health and started taking shots at Coughlin and the alleged unleaderly Manning, it was hard to argue with anything he said.
Now, though, with Coughlin squeezing the most out of his team by loosening his grip and Manning looking like an unflinching battlefield commander, it's hard to even believe these are the guys Barber was talking about.
9. The Domenik mystique
Perhaps no player has ever had a season swing as wildly from one end of the pendulum to the other as Giants kick-returner Domenik Hixon. Talk about a long return. He's taken it all the way from the waiver wire to the Super Bowl.
After suffering the trauma of being in on the opening day hit that threatened to paralyze Bills tight end Kevin Everett, Hixon was released by the Broncos on Oct. 2, nine days after fumbling in a loss to the Jaguars.
Rescued immediately off the scrap heap by the Giants, he has provided a spark on special teams. He returned a kickoff for a touchdown against New England in Week 17 and saved New York against the Pack with his heroic dive on R.W. McQuarters' fourth-quarter fumble.
10. Welcome to GlendaleThe Giants don't lose away from the Meadowlands. In their last 10 games not played in New Jersey, they are not only undefeated, but they have held their opponents to just 148 points over those games (while scoring 237).
During the stretch, they have won in six blue states (Maryland, Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York and Wisconsin), three red states (Georgia, Florida, Texas) and one United Kingdom. They have won in sun, rain and bitter cold. Seven of their 10 straight road victories have been by seven points or less with three decided by a field goal.
The Patriots, meanwhile, proved that pretty much the only thing that could even slow them down was inclement weather. In the 10 games played before Thanksgiving, New England averaged 41.1 points per game and had an average margin of victory of over 25 points per game.
The average daily high for Feb. 3 in Glendale is 71 degrees.
