The best seat in the house is the view from the couch

Super Bowl XLII Recap

It's about 5:30am on the day after the Super Bowl, and I just got home, so this is going ot be short. And probably full of spelling and grammatical errors.

I'm not even upset that the Patriots lost. Actually, check that - of course I'm upset that the Patriots lost. But I'm thoroughly disappointed in how they lost.

How the defense quit on a play where Eli Manning was in the grasp of three lineman, but managed to wriggle free (with the help of some "constructive blocking") and complete a ridiculous 32-yard pass on 3rd and 5.

How the defense was unable to stop a simple 4th and 1 conversion attempt - something they did last week against a supposedly better offense in the San Diego Chargers - that would hve sealed the game.

How with six minutes to go in the 4th quarter, after a Brady to Welker completion to get across the 50-yard line, I openly wondered if the Patriots were leaving too much time on the clock for Eli Manning - and I wasn't even remotely joking.

How for two years in a row I've had to watch my team walk off the field after giving away a game that they had no business losing in the final game of their season.

And how in the living Hell did Ellis Hobbs - Five Foot, Nine Inch Ellis Hobbs - get singled up on Plaxico Burress - Six Foot, Five Inch Plaxico Burress - and why in God's name would Hobbs give Plax an eight yard buffer from the thirteen-yard line?

Complain all you want about the officials - and believe me, there's plenty to complain about; I still can't fathom how the refs allowed Ahmad Bradshaw a full 10 seconds to crawl through a pile and take away a fumble that had clearly been recovered by the Patriots - but this was one hell of a game. Just very disappointing.

I walked away from the Grand Pequot Ballroom at Foxwoods, where I was watching the game, with much the same feeling as I had when I was carried out of Beckett's pub the night of Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS - strangely enough, the event that became the impetus for this website. I just wasn't sure what the hell had just happened, but I was certain it wasn't good for me.

I salute the Giants for winning the game, and (most of) their fans for handling the win with class. I'm bracing for weeks of comparisons to the 2001 Patriots, and months of living with the fact that the Patriots just coughed up history.

In fact, that's probably what pisses me off more than anything else - the knowledge that somewhere in the greater Phoenix/Glendale/Scotsdale area of Arizona, Don Shula popped open a bottle of champagne tonight with a mile-wide grin on his face.

That's it. I can't discuss this anymore. I'm going to bed.

Lata.

Labels: 2007, Heartbreak, NFL, Playoffs, Super Bowl, What the hell just happened?

posted by Big D @ 5:18 AM