Super Bowl XLII – University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale AZ.

Sunday, February 3, 2008 at 6 P.M. on FOX

Announcers: Joe Buck and Troy Aikman

New York Giants vs. New England Patriots (-12)

Ian says:

Patriots 38, Giants 21

Most of the Patriots Super Bowl wins have been close games so I think you throw out the spread here. Even though the Giants gave the Pats a scare in the last regular season game, I think this game will be a different story.

Bill Belichick is a master when he’s given more time (bye week) to prepare for an opponent. I think that’s what gives the Patriots the upper hand in this game.

I’d expect the Giants to try and exploit Tom Brady’s injury by blitzing a lot in the early part of the game, seeing if they can get a hit on him. I fully expect Brady’s “Five Layers of Protection” to not let this happen. We all know TFB isn’t fleet of foot so I’d expect Wes Welker, Donté Stallworth and Randy Moss to do everything they can to get open.

The X factor for me in this game is the running of Laurence Maroney and Kevin Faulk. Both of them have had great games in the playoffs. If Maroney and Faulk get their yards, expect the Pats to put this one away by the third quarter.

Steve says:

Patriots 42, Giants, 27

This game scares me. All championship games give me an uneasy feeling. This is so much like the Patriots vs. Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI it isn’t funny. The Giants are coming into this game with a quarterback full of confidence, a defense that is playing well and being opportunistic and a feeling like they can win regardless of what the pundits say. They also lost earlier this regular season to the team they are facing for the championship.

This is just like the 2001 Patriots. Tom Brady, who was a second year player, took over early in the season when Drew Bledsoe got hurt. Brady wasn’t spectacular but he was steady and efficient. The defense, the Belichick trademark, had stepped it up and played well and was doing well in the takeaway department.

Eli Manning has much more experience at this point in his career than Brady did that year. He has also been kind of a Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde kind of guy his whole career. Which Manning shows up on Sunday? The good Eli who has three straight road playoff wins and no INT’s or Bad Eli who threw a boatload of picks in one game earlier this season?

The thing that immediately separates the 2007 Giants and the 2001 Patriots is the Patriots were a higher seed in the conference playoffs and had a home playoff game. They also had to play one less game to get to the Super Bowl. While the Giants, as a wild card team had to go on the road and win thee games in places that are not easy to do so.

Also that year there was no bye week between the conference championships and the Super Bowl because of the September 11^th tragedy. So the Patriots as the hot, streaky team got to stay on the field as if it were a normal week in the NFL season. Now the Giants who have been playing very well have had to sit for a week when they’d have rather been on the field playing this past Sunday.

The Giants in many ways are also like the 1985 Patriots team that got dismantled by Chicago in Super Bowl XX. That Patriot team, much like the Giants, had to win three games on the road against stiff competition. They had to win in a place where they didn’t have a lot of luck in the past. Then they ran all their momentum into the bye week and got pasted 46-10.

The bye I think favors New England as many of their players, key players, have gone through this once, twice, three even four times before and they know what to expect. The Giants have fewer players with Super Bowl experience, especially amongst the key players, and the bye week may make them feel antsy and nervous.

The other thing that favors New England is that they are 24-7 under Bill Belichick when facing a team a second or third time in a season. That’s an amazing statistic. I also think their experience and their championship pedigree bring other intangibles plus they have better players and more of them. Young quarterbacks, like Manning, also have a history of fairing extremely poorly the second time they face a Belichick team in a season. Just ask Ben Roethlisberger in 2004. The Steelers snapped the Patriots 21 game win streak on Halloween, only to get kicked up and down the field in the AFC Championship game.

The Patriots are going to hang some points on the board. The game is going to be played in a climate controlled atmosphere on a natural grass surface and I think Brady and Randy Moss, Wes Welker, Donte Stallworth, Jabar Gaffney and Ben Watson are going to make this look like a track meet at some point. While I am anxious about the game and nervous about the outcome I think the Patriots will win their 4th Super Bowl under Belichick in the last 7 years and end the season unbeaten.