NE-NY: two thumbs up
Cold, Hard Football Facts for December 30, 2007
By Kerry J. Byrne
Cold, Hard Football Facts plot thickener
We expected to watch a football game Saturday night between the playoff-bound Patriots and Giants.
We ended up with an unexpected movie marathon, featuring some of the best, most goose-bump inducing thrills a Saturday night could offer.
Here are some of the trailers in case you were out in the lobby grabbing Goobers.
Groundhog Day
Somewhere during New England's historic 38-35 victory we got the feeling, like Bill Murray's Phil Connors traveling through Punxsutawney, PA, that we had seen this story before. In this case it was a plucky competitor – first the Colts then the Eagles and Ravens and, last night, the Giants – giving the Patriots all they can handle for 45 minutes, only to yield the floor to New England in the fourth quarter, the same scene replayed game ...
… after game ...
… after game ...
… after game.
The Giants led 28-16 deep into the third quarter last night, only to watch helplessly as the Patriots ripped off 22 straight points to take a 38-28 lead into the final minutes of the game.
- Sound familiar, Indy? The Colts led 20-10 in the fourth quarter. They lost 24-20.
- Sound familiar, Philly? The Eagles led 28-24 in the fourth quarter. They lost 31-28.
- Sound familiar, Baltimore? The Ravens led 24-17 in the fourth quarter. They lost 27-24.
Trailing in the fourth quarter, against the only four teams to give them a game this year, the Patriots outscored these four opponents 46-7.
The transcendent Tom Brady, naturally, played perfectly when he had to against all four teams. (Last night he was a mere 32 of 42 (76.2%) for 356 yards, 8.48 YPA, 2 TD, 0 INT and a 116.8 passer rating.)
His opposing QB in each game made critical mistakes down the stretch.
- Indy's Peyton Manning fumbled the ball on his team's last two drives, the second of which was recovered by New England.
- Philly's A.J. Feeley was picked off on each of his team's last two drives.
- Baltimore's Kyle Boller tossed a pick at New England’s 1, blowing a chance to take a two-TD lead deep into the fourth quarter.
Last night, New York's Eli Manning replayed the scene in vibrant Technicolor on three different networks. After a brilliant game that could have revitalized his battered reputation, Manning finally turned into a pigskin pumpkin by tossing an INT to New England’s Ellis Hobbs with just under 10 minutes to play in the game.
It was the only turnover in the game and probably proved the difference between a shocking win for the Giants and a 16-0 season for the Patriots, as New England then took the ball and marched 52 yards for the final – and decisive – score, a 5-yard Laurence Maroney TD run.
The Magnificent Seven
We love a good old-fashioned gunfight, nearly as much as Yul Brynner, James Coburn, Steve McQueen & Co. And last night's game, which literally had no impact on the playoff picture, still featured more dust-ups and skirmishes than the classic Western, including one potentially ugly battle with two minutes remaining that resulted in a 15-yard penalty on – who else? – New England bad boy Rodney Harrison. In other games, under other coaches, at other times, key players for both teams would be sitting by the foot warmers staring at the cheerleaders. But last night players on both sides kept fighting up to the whistle, and in most cases beyond the whistle, on snap after snap.
Victory
Both teams knew there were bigger battles to fight and that this game could essentially be treated as a scrimmage, much like Stallone's fictional prison-camp soccer game. The Giants could have rested up for the Tampa Bay game next weekend in the playoffs. The Patriots could have rested for the inevitable donnybrook against Indy in two weeks. Instead, they yielded to the temptation of competition and battled simply because they are men and because there was a game on the schedule and a battle to be fought. If we were at the game (or if we weren't so fat, slow, weak and generally inert) we would have been tempted to storm out of the stands and carry both teams off the field for treating us to a great athletic battle when they simply did not have to treat us to anything but a scrimmage.
Gone with the Wind
We witnessed more than a football game last night. We witnessed sweeping historic epic that will be remembered forever, at least in the annals of football lore: the 2007 Patriots marched from one end of the NFL season to the other, burning everything in its path and stomping out a quaint old culture in the process. For years we’ve been told no team can go 16-0. Now we know a team
can go 16-0. Love the Patriots or hate the Patriots, if you're a football fan you frankly do give a damn about the meaning of 16-0.
High Fidelity
You couldn’t look at a single scene last night without finding a slew of records to carry the plot. Tom Brady tied the singe-season TD pass record (49) and Randy Moss tied the single-season TD reception record (22) on the very same play that gave the Patriots 560 points on the season, breaking the previous single-season record of 556 points by the 1998 Vikings.
Tom Brady then
set the single-season TD pass record (50) and Randy Moss
set the single-season TD reception record (23) with a gorgeous 65-yard strike that virtually ensured New England’s record 16-0 season.
The Patriots ended the game with 38 points and the season with 589 points. Their average of 36.8 PPG is the highest of the Super Bowl Era and
second in NFL history only to the 1950 Rams (38.8 PPG). Of course, those 1950 Rams had the advantage of playing a full quarter of their schedule (3 of 12 games) against new expansion teams that year (the Baltimore Colts and New York Yanks), both of which were incredibly poor defensively and both of which were so bad they would fold within a year.
The Patriots ended the season with a slew of team an all-time NFL records, too numerous to mention here.
But the record that seemed to receive surprisingly little play during last night’s tri-network broadcast? The Patriots have now won 19 straight regular-season games, beating the mark of 18 straight set by – who else – the 2003-04 Patriots. In this classic vinyl shop of history, the amazing longest regular-season win streak is a mere afterthought, kind of like forgetting about Zeppelin II.
The Sixth Sense
The Patriots-Giants game would end one of two ways, according to the “pundits” (including the Cold, Hard Football Facts). Either the Patriots would blow out New York’s starters or the Patriots would blow out New York’s reserves. Instead, in one of the great plot twists since Haley Joel Osment saw dead people, we were treated to 38-35 slugfest in which the starters on both sides went wire to wire and in which the outcome wasn’t decided until New England’s Mike Vrabel – what doesn’t he do? – recovered New York’s onside kick attempt with a minute to play. Both teams clearly wanted the victory on a day that the Sixth Sense of football, the thrill of competition, carried the day.
Perfect
Right now, the Patriots are a perfect 16-0. But their season can end up a bigger dud than the cheesy-80s John Travolta-Jamie Lee Curtis vehicle if they don’t end up an even more perfect (yes, such as thing does exist) 19-0.
Stock up on the popcorn and Goobers, folks. This is where the plot really grows interesting.
