Time Out: Sheldon Mickles column for Jan. 24, 2012
Super Bowl match looks positive
While there have been far more Super Bowls that turned out to be duds, here’s hoping this year’s game is as interesting as the AFC and NFC championship games were on Sunday.
While they weren’t nearly as compelling as the San Francisco 49ers’ dramatic 36-32 victory over the New Orleans Saints in the NFC Divisional Playoffs a week ago, a wild contest that featured four lead changes in a span of 3 minutes, 53 seconds, Sunday’s games were still a lot of fun to watch.
They had just about everything you’d want with conference championships and Super Bowl berths on the line: Two three-point games.
One went to sudden-death, while the other should have needed extra time to decide who would advance to Super Bowl XLVI.
And for those Indianapolis Colts who just about six months ago were dreaming of having a Manning starting at quarterback in the NFL’s title game in Lucas Oil Stadium, they have it — even if it will be Eli Manning under center instead of older brother Peyton — when the New York Giants and New England Patriots meet on the evening of Feb. 5.
While many people were looking for the Patriots to go against the Saints or Green Bay Packers in what certainly would have had the potential to be one of the highest-scoring games in Super Bowl history, the Patriots and Giants will do.
If you didn’t like the way their matchup in Super Bowl XLII turned out, when Eli Manning and the Giants shocked the Patriots to end their dream of becoming the first team to finish 19-0, you’re going to get another shot at it four years later.
And Giants’ fans will be eager to see if they can again knock off a Patriots’ franchise that ruled the NFL with three Super Bowl wins in a four-season span earlier in the last decade.
Other than the Patriots not being undefeated this season, the biggest difference is that Manning is now rated among the elite quarterbacks in the game and more on par with Patriots’ star Tom Brady and others — like Peyton Manning and Drew Brees.
Which is one of the reasons the Giants, who were the last team to defeat the Patriots back on Nov. 6, are only 3½-point underdogs this time rather than the 12-point underdogs they were after the 2007 season.
We can only hope they can somehow recreate that classic in which the Patriots, after being outplayed for more than 3½ quarters, struck for a touchdown with just under three minutes left.
That merely led to a drive Manning and the Giants had to have, an 83-yarder to the go-ahead score with 35 seconds left for a 17-14 victory.
That came on the fourth play after Manning authored one of the greatest plays in Super Bowl history.
He somehow slipped away from onrushing Patriots’ linemen to complete a 32-yard pass to David Tyree — who trapped the ball against his helmet after he out-fought safety Rodney Harrison for it.
Whether this one lives up to that one won’t be known for another 11 days, but it can’t come soon enough.