Had proven cheaters won the Super Bowl Sunday night, I probably would have stopped loving football. I might have still continued to watch it, but it definitely wouldn't have been the same. The improbable finish was the stuff of storybook legends and expensive Disney movies. One has to consider that the Giants started out 0-2 and nobody gave them a chance to do anything noteworthy this season. A lot of people had Manning pegged as a bust, Coach Tom Coughlin was labeled a lame duck and several didn't even give New York consideration for the playoffs. Then there are the Patriots. Where to begin? "Spygate" would be the obvious choice. We know the Patriots cheated to win games. They admitted as much by divulging that they taped their opponents' offensive/defensive signals from the sideline. And for all the talk that Patriots coach Bill Belichick is a "genius"; he sure did "misinterpret" a rule that is just about as unequivocal as a rule could possibly be. Here is the rule as stated in a 2006 memo to the entire league:

"Videotaping of any type, including but not limited to taping of an opponent's offensive or defensive signals, is prohibited on the sidelines, in the coaches' booth, in the locker room or at any other locations accessible to club staff members during the game."

Really now...what's there to interpret? The short answer is, "nothing". They did exactly what that memo says you are not allowed to do. And pathetically, the reaction the Patriots (it's sad that this is the team that gets that moniker) had was one of indignation and vitriol. They acted like they felt they had been wronged and were justified in being angry at the rest of the NFL. That's just like a rotten, spoiled child who gets caught with their hand in the cookie jar. They were mad because they got caught. Not because they were wrong or that they defecated all over their own legacy; they were mad because they got caught. How many online video game players have you encountered and despised that embody this mentality?

Sadly, the Patriots went on to make history a few different ways this year. Tom Brady the quarterback threw a record 50 touchdowns only a few short years after the previous "untouchable" record of 49 was set by Peyton Manning. His favorite wide receiver, Randy Moss, set a record of 23 touchdown catches; beating the old record of 22 that the legend Jerry Rice held. They scored an NFL record 589 points in the regular season. Oh yeah--they also won every single game in the regular season to go 16-0. That had never been done since the NFL went to a 16 game schedule. That included one win against the Giants. They stampeded through their otherwise unremarkable playoff games against the Jacksonville Jaguars and then the San Diego Chargers. Neither team seemed to offer much resistance. Jacksonville and San Diego pretty much just grabbed their ankles after the first quarter or two and said, "Go ahead, have at it." In what was no big surprise after all that; the Patriots were 18-0 and heading to the Super Bowl.

Now let's look at the path of the Giants. They lost their (arguably) best all around player in running back Tiki Barber in the off season. He wanted to retire while he could still comfortably walk, navigate stairs and other such small things we take for granted. He chose quality of life (and a cushy TV job I might add) over fighting through one more year. At least that's what he said. And I believe that part of what he said too. I just highly doubt that is the only reason he quit. We'll get to that in a minute. Furthermore, their defensive leader, teams' heart and soul and 15 year veteran Michael Strahan was in doubt of returning as the retirement bug was buzzing through his mind too. The quarterback, Eli Manning, was starting to be viewed as a bust and that he would always be his brother Peyton's inferior. The team had a new defensive coordinator in Steve Spagnola. As with anytime there are fundamental changes in a routine, there were growing pains. The Giants lost their first two games and lost them badly. They gave up a combined 80 points in those games. Incidentally, the teams they lost to were Green Bay in week 1 and Dallas in week 2. That would end up being more significant as the season took shape. But then in that third game, something seemed to kind of click. They won that game. And then they won some more games. And more. They reeled off six wins in a row. One of those wins was an embarrassingly thorough trouncing of the Philadelphia Eagles that saw Donovan McNabb get sacked 12 times. The defense that was laughed at in the first two games to the point that some doubted the Giants chances at the playoffs; was suddenly feared and revered. During their winning stretch, Tiki Barber took it upon himself to run his former team, coach and quarterback down by insulting Eli's leadership skills by describing him as "comical", and impugning Tom Coughlin as a poor coach. Maybe it was sour grapes, and maybe he's just a jerk or maybe he just came off sounding like a jerk for stating his honest opinion. Or-as I tend to think-maybe he was revealing the truest reason that he left his team. Namely, he had stopped believing in them. Whatever the case, there was no good reason for Tiki to risk sabotaging his former brethren. And Eli in a rare show of obvious anger, fired back at Tiki. His team responded in kind and sided with the young quarterback. That seemed to be one of the crucial moments of the season where Eli staked his claim as a true leader and the rest of the team as a whole really gelled.

The final 8 regular season games were noticeably more challenging for the Giants. That is generally how it goes as the playoffs approach. The Giants went 4-4 to close out the year, losing once again to the Cowboys and then barely succumbing to defeat in a stunningly close Week 17 game against the Patriots. This game was rare in that the AFC Patriots can only play the NFC Giants once every several years in the regular season due to the scheduling structure. It was also rare in that the quality of play from both teams was unusually abundant. Both teams had their spots secured in the playoffs. Neither winning nor losing would make a shred of difference to their standing. Neither team cared about that. They went at each other for 4 quarters of balls-to-the-walls football. The heavily favored Patriots just squeezed out the 38-35 victory. But the game was pivotal in that it seemed to be the catalyst that drove the Giants from being a good team to being a great team. That narrow loss against what the piles of talking heads out there were calling the "greatest team ever" seemed to breed within them a confidence that they didn't have before. Sure enough once the playoffs got rolling, so did the Giants. They started with a convincing (albeit unsurprising) win against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Tampa's conference was weak and they had secured their division-winning status two weeks prior. Tampa coach Jon Gruden had chosen to rest his starters those two weeks. Needless to say, Tampa looked rusty and out of synch. The next week was where the road was supposed to end for the Giants year. They were going into Dallas. They had already lost to Dallas twice in the regular season. Dallas had the best record with in the NFC at 13-3. New York was an 11-6 wild card team. Dallas had gotten to rest the entire week while the Giants had to play in muggy Tampa. Dallas has twelve Pro Bowl players. New York has one. There was no way New York could win according to most. They were going to lose and lose BIG. Guess what? They won. They played Dallas tough and never let up on them. They even drove some of the Cowboys to tears. (See Dallas wide receiver Terrell Owens's post-game interview.) What was their reward for this huge upset victory? They got to go into Green Bay and play the also 13-3 Packers. That meant facing the NFL's last gunslinger in Packer quarterback Brett Favre. That meant playing on the cement-hard "frozen tundra" of Lambeau Field. Both Brett and Lambeau are legends for all time in the NFL. Just like with Dallas; they played with the toughness of a two-dollar steak. And again, they won. They had to go into overtime and win it on the foot of their shaky kicker who had missed his previous two (shorter) attempts in that game. But somehow, they won it. Their reward this time was The New England Patriots. Yes they were going on to face the big, bad, mean, unstoppable, history-making cheaters themselves. With a few notable exceptions, this team had been machine-like in their dissection and decimation of each team they had faced. Most of their victories were so one-sided; it almost seemed like they knew what the other team was going to do before they did it.

And so now the table was set for history. One way or the other, something monumental was going to happen. This is a fairy tale legend of a story that started all the way back into the 2006 season when the Giants were a mediocre 8-8 and had well-documented team/coach infighting. The Patriots last loss had been in the 2006 AFC championship game against the Indianapolis Colts who were/are lead by Peyton Manning. New England had vastly improved their already accomplished team (especially on offense) and New York had lost their most valuable player to retirement with no clear replacement to step into the gap he left. The Giants fought and struggled through the season. They used their players strength's and spread the ball around to account for the departed Tiki Barber. Their oft-injured star wide receiver Plaxico Burress stepped up his level of play as did their primary running back Brandon Jacobs. And their defense seemed to become truly possessed and their play often showed it. But they always had to bear the underdog label no matter how talented they appeared to become. Conversely though, the vile, contemptuous Patriots slaughtered one valiant challenger after another, including their previous year's foil; the Colts and Peyton Manning. Once the playoffs arrived; the Patriots (having secured home-field advantage throughout) practically walked right through their opposition just like they did in the regular season. The Giants had had to win 3 straight games on the road. Two of those wins were against teams that had beaten them at least once before in the season. And those wins afforded them the reward of playing in the Super Bowl in Arizona! That means the closest the Giants ever got to New York during the entire playoffs was WISCONSIN! (~900 miles!!) You just couldn't write a script this good.

Eli; the young, heretofore untested neophyte; who's own brother as well as every other challenger fell at the hands of the despicable Patriots juggernaut; took up the mantle of hero and defender. The Giants defense seemingly played beyond human levels. They more closely resembled starving, wild animals. Almost nobody believed that it was possible for anyone to kill this Patriots beast, least of all the Giants. But the Giants became giant-killers themselves. Just like the storybook hero, they rose up, they found strength from deep within and when the final bell tolled; they had done the impossible. They had found a way to win. The Giants had absolutely dominated the indomitable Patriots. The little team that supposedly couldn't---DID. And they did it with a ferocity and effectiveness that defied explanation. After 20 long weeks of desperation and the mounting collective despair of the villain achieving victory upon victory; there was beautiful vindication. There was testimony that there truly is a greater justice out there. It showed us that sometimes the noble underdog can rise above his assigned status and dictate his own place in the world. They proved that sometimes the only way to defeat the biggest bully on the block is to reach back and punch him so hard that he can't get up.

Good job Giants and thank you. You practically saved football for a legion of NFL devotees.

You gave us a reason to believe.

And you gave us a reason to say: "Thank God that sometimes the good guys do win."