Eli Manning walked out to meet David Letterman last night, accompanied by the song “The Impossible Dream,” and confirmed that the Giants’ Super Bowl win over the Patriots was, indeed, a miracle.
Manning compared the Giants to the USA “Miracle on Ice” hockey team that defeated the Russians in the 1980 Olympics. The Americans played the Russians earlier and lost, then defeated them in the biggest game, much the same way the Giants lost to the Patriots to end the regular season before stomping them out in Super Bowl XLII.
“I think they way that we played them – you know, Coach Coughlin said, ‘Hey, we’re already in the playoffs,’ so the game didn’t matter. You know, they were going for the undefeated season,” Manning said on tonight’s “Late Show,” which airs on Ch. 2 at 11:35.
“He said, ‘We’re going to play. We’re going to play our starters, we’re going to play to win,’ and I think that got the message across that we’re going to try to win this game.
“And we played them tough. They beat us, and after the game, I was thinking about it – you ever seen the movie, ‘Miracle’? …
“I kind of thought about that same situation. I said, you know, this is a team, if we make our run and get to do what we’re supposed to do and get to the Super Bowl, this is the team we’ll probably be playing.
“I think it’s kind of good that way: You play the best team, you see where you stand, you see where you fit in, and we lost by three points [38-35]. We were thinking, ‘You know, we’re a pretty good team, we can make this run.’ So when we got to the Super Bowl and faced them again, you know, it was just like the Americans when they, you know, played the Russians and the Soviet Union.”
Manning told Letterman that the pressure brought on by New York criticism paid off for him in the end.
“I think, you know, when you go through those tough times, you learn from it,” Manning said. “It makes you a stronger person. You know, you deal with those things, you know, there’s going to be highs, there’s going to be lows, but you know, going through those lows has made this all more special, made it a great thing.”
Manning recapped the Giants’ road warrior march through the playoffs, the improbable catch by David Tyree on the world-championship-winning drive, and joked about Patriots coach Bill Belichick leaving the field before the game ended.
“Trying to beat traffic, I guess,” he said to audience laughter.