After a festival of commercials and snacks leave, our memories retain legacies. Super Bowls produce legacies. For the NFL, more than any professional sport, a Super Bowl victory defines its players. It places them in the lexicon of all-time greats – of legends.
Visualize a legend. In our minds, legends are black and white. Legends appear as ghosts. They do not speak, they are noble and revered. We do not envision the living legends we watch today. We are, indeed, watching legends before our eyes, even though we don’t realize it. Tom Brady is amongst them. The Patriots quarterback is the stuff of legend. A 6th round draft pick – over looked at every level of his career – couldn’t even garner the respect of his college coach. He is the quintessential blue collar quarterback, despite at times looking like a pretty boy with his Cali swag. He has dug his career out of the dirt, appearing about as physically talented as a mechanic at a local Jiffy Lube. He wins with his mind. He wins with his desire. He wins with his 'it'.
If anything, this Super Bowl feels anticlimactic. Rewind time and we’ve seen this before. A boring rematch. It is the first time in history two quarterbacks meet again in a Super Bowl. It is also, the first time that two Super Bowl champion coaches meet in the Super Bowl. Revert to 2007, a struggling Giants team, turned scorching hot, ran through a NFC – seemingly stuck in the mud – to a Super Bowl. The 2007 Giants, anchored by a strong pass rush and clutch quarterback play from an underrated leader, reached the Super Bowl as an underdog to...the Patriots. The 2007 ‘Rat Pack’ Pats, as they were called by my memory, were the Super Bowl favorites for months on end. The epitome of continuity in an NFL that preaches parity, the Patriots had been the standard of excellence. And the two teams meet again.
Now we’ve looked at Tom Brady, but let’s not forget this is a match-up of elite quarterbacks. Elite quarterbacks. Eli-te quarterbacks. I have understood reservations to place Eli in this select category, because despite his ring, he doesn’t match his statistics with the gaudy statistics we see in New Orleans, Green Bay, New England and the 1999-2010 Indianapolis Colts. With the most road playoff victories in history and his second visit to a Super Bowl in 4 years, Eli can be considered elite. Better than the top four? Probably not, but elite none the less. If he beats the Patriots again, he will have more Super Bowl wins than his Hall of Famer brother. Both of his Super Bowls would be won over the same team that has held Peyton back from arguably winning 3 or 4 rings. Eli would join and surpass many of the NFL’s greats.
But he won’t. The Giants cannot and will not win this game.
It was hard enough to beat the Patriots in 2007. The ’07 Pats were under the burden of perfection bearing down on their bodies. It took a record breaking Brady returning to normalcy to have an opportunity to win. It took adhesive help from David Tyree’s helmet and a Houdini act by Manning just to summon a winning drive, to win by a mere 3 points.
It is near impossible to beat the Patriots twice in the same season. The Giants got the best of Brady and Co. in October. The Patriots haven’t lost since, winning ten straight contests. Belichick will not allow himself to be outsmarted, not again, not this Super Bowl. The ultra-competitor Tom Brady will pick through the Giants defense, Gronk or no-Gronk. The mesh-like Patriots defense will make enough stops to allow Brady to finish his unfinished business.
When the clock hits zeros, Tom Brady will not be an elite quarterback in this league. He will be a legend.
Troy 'bobo' Klongerbo
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