I woke up early this morning for a reason I don’t remember, and then I couldn’t fall asleep. I had many thoughts keeping me up, and two of them were about football. One was that I thought the New York Jets should go after Peyton Manning. I mean, the Jets need a quarterback and Sanchez needs a mentor. Plus, I think the NFL would love it if both Mannings were in New York. Later in the day, on the Colin Cowherd show, someone also suggested the Jets should think about Manning. That same person also thought of the 49ers, as many others have.
The other thought that raced around in my mind as I tried to return to that beautiful world of sleep was the Super Bowl. Who will win? The New England Patriots or the New York Giants?
My first thought was the New York Giants. I thought it will be similar to the last Super Bowl where they played each other, but there will be a little more scoring. But then I thought the Patriots would win because when two teams face each other in the regular season and then meet in the Super Bowl, the team that lost the regular season game wins the Super Bowl more often than the team that won the regular season game. Plus, Bill Belichek appears real loose and confident. Surely he’s up to something. Plus, the Patriots defense is better than it appears. They let up yards, but not too many points.
But here is what I think will happen. I think the Patriots will start the game by running screens, draws, and play action passes to slow down the aggressive New Giants defensive line, but the Patriots won’t be very successful. While they are trying to do that on offense, the New York Giants will get two quick passing touchdowns as they expose the weaknesses in the Patriots secondary.
Now, the Patriots will be down 14-3, and then they will revert to their typical playing style and make a slow but aggressive come back. After three quarters, it will be 17-17.
This is when the Patriots offensive line will become tired and the Giants defensive line will become energized and aggressive again. They will start hitting Tom Brady. The Patriots won’t be able to sustain drives. Then the Giants offense will come to life again, and the score two more quick touchdowns. Midway through the fourth it will be 31-17.
The Patriots will fight back, but it won’t be enough. The Giants will win 34-24.
I think the Giants offense is pretty good, and better than any offense the Patriots have faced in the playoffs. I imagine Super Bowl kind of like the Patriots/Ravens game, but a Ravens team that has an offense. I mean, the Ravens could have won that, but the Giants will.//
A pretty thorough and good analysis. I might come to the same outcome by a different route. I can see the early lead and then Coughlin out Belicheking Belichek. The Giants run game has been the week point in that offense, but it is good enough, with support from Eli’s passing game to run down the clock, wear out the Pat’s D and give their D a rest. It will force Belichek to abandon his normal style of play calling, forcing Brady to go big or go home and even if they manage to score, it will be on short drives that leaves their D still tired (think Buffalo’s awesome D struggling in the early 90′s in big games because the K gun and no-huddle was leaving them no time to rest.) Eli can tear up a rested D, an exhausted one will be scored on enough to keep the game out of New England’s reach. I see the final score in the same range you predicted, just for slightly different reasons.