The New York Giants have upended the 12-point favorite New England Patriots by the score of 17-14 tonight to win Super Bowl 42 in Glendale, Arizona. Who at the beginning of this year would have thought that the last words of the football season would be ‘Giants are champions!’ or ‘Eli Manning is Super Bowl MVP’? Not even Giants fans were that optimistic. Everyone, and I mean pretty much everyone, picked the Patriots to win this game outside of New York. But this proves the old football cliche: any given Sunday. 18-0? Throw it out. MVP quarterback? Throw it out. The Giants won for a number of reasons, and I briefly recall someone I know picking New York to win not that long ago…..oh yeah, ME

That’s right people, yours truly saw this coming. Now, when you take a look at that article I wrote , it seems like the Giants had to play the perfect game. Well, they had to, didn’t they? And tonight, they did. It might not have turned out truly perfect by the stats, but when you watch how they went about doing things, you can see that they were the aggressors tonight. Here’s just a few of the things I said they had to do:

Control the Clock: Giants: 30:27, Patriots 29:33 - So, this wasn’t overwhelming. But, the Patriots had 1 long drive all night (the Moss TD drive). The Giants defense played out of their minds tonight and kept the Patriots offense from controlling the game. Manning was effective as he has been all playoffs, and kept a nice balance to the  game.

Hit/Sack/Pressure Brady: Uh…yeah, I think this one was covered pretty damn well. Brady was sacked 5 times resulting in 37 lost yards. He was constantly put on his back. He was forced to throw off his back foot or from an awkward angle. His arm was hit time and time again as he released the ball. The dominating factor in this game was the Giants defense, and within that, the front 4. Justin Tuck had 2 sacks and was in on the play causing Brady to fumble. What an outstanding game.

Limit Maroney: 14 carries - 36 yards - 1TD. Sure, the touchdown looks nice, but it was a 1-yard run. His long was 9 on the night. The Giants, by eliminating the running game, could more effectively focus on Brady and the passing attack. Maroney wears defenses down usually with his physical play, but the Giants fought back with greater strength.

Eli Plays the game of his life: As I wrote previously, the game of his life doesn’t have to be 400 yards and 4 touchdown tosses, he had to control the game with a smart 60 minutes as he had been doing in the last few weeks. He did exactly that. Over the past 4 weeks we’ve seen an unreal and astonishing coming of age from Eli. He doesn’t look like hes going to cry all the time anymore. His feeble attempt at facial hair is even a little respectable. But tonight he found the right receiver on almost every play. He put the ball right on the numbers or lead a receiver when he had to (like the 45 yard play to Boss; perfect throw). He threw an interception, but it was more Steve Smith’s wrong doing on that play than Eli. He scrambled in the pocket well, avoided sacks, and was just overall a great quarterback tonight. You can’t ask for much more.

The Giants did a lot of things well tonight. David Tyree had a big game (who?). They converted big 3rd downs. They were physical. Overall, it seemed like they wanted it more. And when it all comes to down to effort, the team that wants it more will always win.

Some other notes from tonight:

- the commercials as a whole were awful, again

- Bill Belicheck is a real douchebag, to speak nicely. You don’t walk off the field with time left, Bill. That’s as classless as I’ve seen. Also, I am starting to truly believe that the Patriots have cheated every single year Bill has been in charge. We’ll see what happens there.

- As a die-hard Eagles fan, I felt myself “rooting” for the Giants to win throughout the night. It was strange. But I’ve come to realize that New England might have moved into that 2nd slot of my most hated teams (behind Dallas of course). There’s nothing to like about them.

- The Giants defense gets an A+, if Spagnolo is offered a head coaching job soon, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Giants matched it, like Dallas did with Jason Garrett.

- What a weird, weird night.