I'll Never Forget This Play

One of the greatest sport's plays ever, especially in light of where we were in the game at this moment.


Bill Simmons' take:

...I never thought the Patriots would lose. I thought they'd be tested, I thought the game would be great ... but lose??? You could point out 10 different instances when the Pats blew a chance to make a monster play or put the game away, and you could point out all the different times the Giants caught a break or had a ball bounce their way, but really, everything you need to know about Super Bowl XLII happened on the Miracle Play To Be Named Later -- you know, the third down on the do-or-die drive when Eli Manning ripped himself away from the entire Patriots defensive line (THEY HAD HIS JERSEY!!!!!!) and threw a pass that hung in the air forever like one of those sports movie passes, and even though David Tyree and Rodney Harrison had an equal chance of getting it, Tyree jumped a little bit higher, hauled in the football, trapped it against his helmet and somehow held on while Harrison was doing everything but performing a figure four leg lock on him.

Seriously, what else do you need to know about this game beyond that play and the 30-second loop of Brady getting pounded by various defensive linemen? The Giants played well enough to win, they were tougher, they were luckier and they wanted it just a little bit more. Now we live in a world where Tom Coughlin outcoached Bill Belichick in a Super Bowl, where Eli Manning outplayed Tom Brady in a Super Bowl, where a Belichick Era Patriots team lost a Super Bowl because they weren't tough enough, where the Ewing Theory has been replaced by the Tiki Theory. The Giants deserved to win. They were better. They peaked at the right time. And watching their fans celebrate afterward, a small part of me actually felt happy for them. Envious, even. It's one thing to win a championship ... it's another to win a championship like that. You can't possibly understand unless it happens to you.