My Official Green Bay Packers blog

Superbole (soo-ˈpÉ™r-bÉ™-(ËŒ)lÄ“). When play on the field during the NFL championship game meets the extravagant exaggeration of the two weeks of Superbowl build-up.  What we saw last night was Superbole. There was a New England team that by all accounts was being given the Lombardi trophy 5 weeks into the season. A veritable Justice League of the NFL, the Patriots were chock full of today’s superheros at their respective positions.

Choosing to play against them was the 12-point underdog Giants, led by a meek quarterback, gangly-legged receiver and gap-toothed defensive end. The NFL’s Bad News Bears. Only a few prognosticating wackjobs gave the Giants a chance.

“What happened, happened and couldn’t have happened any other way.” - Morpheus, The Matrix Reloaded

Are you a Packer fan thinking that if we’d have kicked that last kick in the NFC championship game instead of the Giants, that our boys would be raising the hardware today? That’s nonsense. Let me explain why.

There were a few common threads to each of the four losses the Packers suffered this season. One was coaching yips; in both games against Chicago, the Dallas game and the NFC Championship, the play selection either showed hand-wringing indecision about how to best attack the opposing defense or an in-game inability to recognize what was working and what wasn’t (or the patience to give more than one try to a given tactic).

Another was Brett Favre. Though he’s a crafty old veteran who’s seen it all, it’s been several years since he’s been in a really meaningful game. He’s probably forgotten how to not get rattled in the big games. Those past successes don’t lend as much confidence as they would if Favre had been to the Superbowl in say 2003.

Even Favre had been on camera late this season discussing how their success was so unexpected and how he was concerned about how loose everyone was playing. Like they should have been tighter. We saw what the increased cranial pressure was doing to this southern Mississippi guy: inside the egg scrambler.

Throw around him a cast of young bucks who’ve never sampled the attention heaped on at this level and they’re bound to be overwhelmed.  The Packers would not have beaten this Patriot team.

But then there’s the Giants. In the 4 hours of pregame telecast Howie Long had said that in week 17 the Patriots got the Giants ‘A’ game, but that the Giants hadn’t seen the best the Patriots had to offer. Howie could not have been more wrong, as it may have been Belichick’s poor sportsmanship and insane lust for ultimate perfection that drove him to  bring everything the Patriots could muster to every game.  And that cost them this Superbowl.

Examples throughout the season like going for it on fourth down when you’re up by 40 points and leaving your starters in for the entire game even when you have home field locked up showed Belichick’s unhealthy obsessions. With their win over the Colts in week 9, at the end of week 13 they had home field throughout the playoffs locked up. But Belichick wanted more. So he played every game right up to the season finale against the Giant with balls to the wall, exposing everything the Patriots had in their bag of tricks.

Like when Rocky punched a cut open over Ivan Drago’s eye in Rocky IV, week 17 showed the Giants that this Patriot team was not a machine. It was just a group of men. And just like Rocky IV, in the end the arrogant New England Dragos were laying on the canvas.

As Morpheus said, this is the only way this could have happened. Had the Patriots gifted week 17 to the Giants in order to rest players and prep for the playoffs, the Patriots stand at 18-1, but winners of the Superbowl. If the Packers beat the Giants at Lambeau and go to the Superbowl, the Patriots go undefeated, smothering a young Packer team blinded by the bright lights of superstardom.

Congratulations, New York Giants. You played a hell of a game and did what nobody else was able to do. You did it in the most important game of the season, and your lives. And you did it by beating a team led by a coach of immeasurable ego and vanity. An unguided missile shot up the exhaust pipe of Belichick’s Death Asteroid.

Technorati Tags: Superbowl, New England Patriots, New York Giants, Shocked The World