GLENDALE, Ariz. – Even from as far away as inside the University of Phoenix Stadium, the Giants tonight will feel and hear that familiar roar of the great city they are so proud to represent, trying to will them past the mighty Patriots, reaching as high as the Empire State Building along with them for that Lombardi Trophy.
Bring It Home.
Bring home the head of Bill Belicheat, the imperfect man who coaches the perfect team.
Bring home the head of Tom Brady, the perfect man who quarterbacks the perfect team and delivers flowers to Gisele Bundchen.
Bring home a championship to a city that, more than six years after 9-11, still is waiting to stand atop office buildings and line the Canyon of Heroes to shower one of its own with confetti and love.
Make this your field of dreams. Make this the perfect burial ground for their perfect season.
You are the last team standing between the Patriots and history, and many of you, maybe all of you, never again will have a chance like this to make your own history, to become the third Giants team to win a Super Bowl.
If you pull this off, you will be remembered forever alongside the Joe Namath Jets, the Willis Reed-Clyde Frazier Knicks, the Gil Hodges Mets, the Joe Torre Yankees in 1996.
Remind us what a group of men can achieve, against all odds, when it believes.
When it believes it is Destiny’s Darlings.
“There is sort of a fate feel for the team,” said long-snapper Zak DeOssie, son of Giants Super Bowl XXV champion Steve DeOssie.
“Everybody, I think, on the team’s been kind of an underdog kinda growing up,” backup QB Jared Lorenzen said. “It’s just something we live off of.”
Lawrence Taylor and Phil Simms will be in the stands, and Wellington Mara and Bob Tisch will be peering down from Big Blue heaven, but when the hitting starts, they won’t be able to help you. You’ll be on your own.
But that’s the way you irrepressible road warriors like it. That’s the way you’ve liked it 10 straight times, the way you liked it in Tampa, in Dallas, in Green Bay, and that’s the way you will like it tonight.
You against the world, and the world is in trouble.
There isn’t anyone New York would want staring down Brady tonight than Eli Manning. Because he is on a roll, because he has been better in the playoffs than Brady, because he was born for this stage and this moment and because New York is now convinced that even the biggest game of all won’t be too big for him.
“He has such a tremendous focus on the task at hand,” David Diehl said, “and doesn’t let anything on the outside rattle his approach towards games, and that’s no different.”
Eli’s MVP chances?
“Extremely good; I think he’s the guy that leads our team, and I think unless somebody comes up great on defense, if there’s an offensive guy that gets it, I think it’s gotta go to Eli,” Lorenzen said.
There isn’t anyone New York would want trying to knock Brady from here to Bundchenville than Michael Strahan and Osi Umenyiora. The Hall of Fame Giant who broke the great LT’s career sack record and the Pro Bowl Giant who turns the corner like the young LT.
There isn’t anyone New York would want trying to smash gallant, old Patriot warriors Tedy Bruschi and Junior Seau in the mouth than Brandon Jacobs and Ahmad Bradshaw. These bully running backs are looking to inflict punishment and to control the clock behind Diehl, the bully left tackle, and Chris Snee, the bully right guard.
There isn’t anyone New York would want trying to steal the show from Randy Moss than Plaxico Burress, even on one leg.
Imaginations have been captured. Tonight is the night to let them run wild.
Imagine Belichick, trudging across the field to shake hands with Tom Coughlin in the longest walk of his life.
Imagine Coughlin, the coach we tried to run out of town, a 61-year-old man reduced to a little boy, kissing the Lombardi Trophy.
Imagine Manning, standing on the podium with Terry Bradshaw the way his big brother Peyton did a year ago, smiling from here to New Orleans, showing emotion we never knew he had in him.
Imagine Strahan, holding the Lombardi Trophy high, the reflection of that gap-toothed smile frozen on his face blinding everyone in sight.
Imagine John Mara, the son of the Hall of Fame owner, sobbing tears of joy.
Imagine the party New York will have waiting for all of them.
“First of all, you live in a city where there’s nine million people,” Lorenzen said, “and then we got the people in Jersey as well that just love us to death. For us to go home, and to have that flight land, I know there’d just be tons of people there just going crazy loving it .?.?. I don’t know how much greater it could be for us.”
Giants 27, Patriots 24.
Perfect upset. Perfect ending.