ESPN has a poll wanting to know who is the greatest Giant of all time.  Obviously this would be a much more interesting question if it were the Greatest Player Not LT. 

Difference from our All-Time Team, Banks instead of Van Pelt, who just missed out making our team, and Robustelli over Marshall, whom I voted for but probably wouldn't again after George's protest.

I voted LT, because frankly I think anything else would be ridiculous (except maybe Mel Hein, who just sounded one of kind, he is not on ESPN's list by the way).  If I were going to go for the non-LT GOAT, I'd have to go either with Strahan or Tiki.

So let me start this off by saying, I have a problem.  I like alcohol a lot.  To myself like a lot of degenerates, the Super Bowl is great day as an avid drinker and as an avid football fan.  I get drunk and I yell at the people who showed up to watch the commercials.  (OMG did you see the squirrels... they are sooooo cute... grr)  Obviously,  it meant a bit more to me this year.  This year I got drunk and I yelled at the people who showed up to watch the commercials and... you know what... I didn't even know anyone else was there... all I cared about was the game.  And I'll tell you, I've never felt better down in a game then I did after the first half of that game.   

So here's the thing, I'm sure you all remember the Johnny Lynn days.  We'd be up in the third quarter only to play Prevent for the next 15 minutes and lose the game.   I rarely relax anymore when the game is on the line.  So obviously,  with the ball in Brady's hands with two minutes left... I was a nervous wreck.  I refused to sit down.  I almost had a heart attack when Brady threw 70 yards down field, probably more like 80 when you take into account he threw across the field.... only to be deflected by the finger tips of Corey Webster, who had been relegated to the bench 4 weeks ago. 

 So after that, Brady throws incomplete with 2 secs on the clock.  I see clearly that there are two seconds left.  I see the Gatorade bath, I see everyone else freaking out.  I start screaming at everyone.... "IT'S NOT OVER.... THERE ARE TWO SECONDS LEFT!!!!!  IT'S TOM BRADY!!!!"   My wife ( a philly fan by birth, Giant fan by my force of nature) starts yelling at me.... "What the hell are you talking about!"  Because while I've been refusing to sit and pulling out my hair for the last ten minutes, my drunk ass did not realize it was fourth down, and stopped myself from celebrating on the play that clinched the game.

I can never forgive myself for missing that moment of adulaton.  Fortunately the next 2 weeks I spent doing nothing but reading and watching Giant's highlights made up for it.

This is my confession....

 

So I'm a huge Penn State friend.  I actively read Black Shoe Diaries, the PSU blog at Sports Nation, which I would arguably say is the standard-bearer for PSU blogs.  As you may know there is much controversy over JoePa's age and a succession plan.  So being cranky and irritable on a Monday, I see someone has posted this on BSD's Diaries :

How about John Hufnagel after JoePa?

With all the talk about eventual coaching succession, Hufnagel's resume is stellar. QB at PSU 70-72, I think sixth in Heisman voting. Played pro football 15 years, then coached Doug Flutie, and Jeff Garcia in Canada. Was QB coach for Peyton Manning; then Mark Brunell at Jacksonville, then QB coach for Tom Brady at the Patriots, onto the NY Giants as Offensive Coordinator 2004-2006 credited with Eli Manning's fast development. Do you sense a strong pattern here?!?! Now head coach in Calgary, probably left the Giants because Tom Coughlin felt threatened by his exceptional coaching talent.

I think my angry comments touched off the big Coughlin debate we had in December, and I believe Ed among others said I needed to let go of Hufnagel hate.  To be fair, I was never really back on the Coughlin bandwagon until it looked like we finally completely scrapped Hufnagel system after the Redskins loss.  Normally, this would roll of my back due to the pleasure of a being WorldChampionNewYorkGiant's fan, but I was a little cranky this morning, and thought of having to watch him call plays for another team I love made me crack a little.  So I responded with a "summary" of what I thought of his coaching ability. 

Ironically, I've never seen any signal caller so universally hated the current PSU OC, Jay Paterno, Joe's son, which in addition to describing his genealogy also describes what appears to be his only qualification for the job. 

 

Do we need one?

I know I love to hate OSU.  I just plain despise Michigan.  If neither of those teams thinks we're the devil, who cares? Only in college football could we looked down upon because other teams don't hate us.  I still look forward to OSU and Michigan every year with the hatred of a rival.  Who cares if they don't think of the same way?  I'm going to say that not caring about what their fans and players think of us should go hand in with hating that team.  

ESPN has an interesting article on Former NFL defensive end Chuck Smith teaching ends proper pass rushing techniques and not relying as much on athleticism alone.  One of the takers, the Giant's very own Osi Umenyiora.  The problem is the article tries to validate the approach with Osi's season:

Umenyiora said he mainly relied on his speed to get to the quarterback in the first five years of his career. After last offseason, his first working with Smith, Umenyiora relied on an assortment of moves to set up opposing blockers. He finished with 13 sacks in 2007, seven more than he posted in 2006.

I don't know if that's really proving the point.  Osi played 5 more games then he did last year.  Taking into account the six sacks he racked up on Winston Justice and Andy Reid's lack of adjustment, you could argue that his numbers were actually down this season.  

I'm not hating on Osi, and I hope this will help his tendency to disappear against the double team.  I just thought it was poor stat to use talk this guy up.

I though I would take a look at some writers that I like, and see what their rankings were of the Giants and the teams we beat.  I figured that in addition to knocking the Patriots' Goliath, we also went through the three of the top five teams in the NFL.  
I was about to put a table here showing them, but it turns out the consensus was 1-Pats, 3-Dallas, 4-GB, with the exception of Scouts Inc. having GB at #5 and Dallas at #2.

Tampa Bay
Scouts Inc. - #10
King - #8
Simmons - #11 (to be fair the last rankings I could find were Week 16)
Dr. Z - #12 (the only lower ranking then the Giants)

Your World Champion NY Giants
Scouts Inc. - #12
King - #10
Simmons - #14 (yikes)
Dr. Z - #7

Tampa is kinda irrelevant since I was praying to to get them, I don't know how Dr. Z was the only one who thought they stunk.  But the fact remains, I don't think you can say this is an "Any Given Sunday" type of victory.  I'm sure people will call this one of the worst Championship teams ever, and there probably not far off, taking into account the whole season.  But this team has beaten 3 of the top 4 NFL teams in the post-Season, despite never being given a chance.  The only thing missing for me in the postseason was going to a game (I went to Bears-Giants in '90).  

PS-Big props to jrs1940 for those Rocky quotes.  I'm sure the Pats fans were snickering with every one, but they look awesome now.  And I like "The Miracle on Grass" as the (to me) unbearable Steve Somers called it.

A while back it seemed like there were a lot of people on here from the DC area.  Where does everyone go to watch the games?  Allegedly the 51st State is supposed to be a "New York" bar but for no reason other then they thought they could make money like that.  I haven't checked it out yet.  Anyone know any good Giant's Bars?  Here's hoping Coughlin keeps the Run N' Gun in check for another week.