It was arguably the best - played Super Bowl by both teams - no turnovers, few panlties. Winning with a backup QB was awesome, something no one thought they could do. The 1990 defense was amazing.
That team was doubted and discounted all year long, and they just kept winning.
because it was the first after being a Giants fan for so long and them finally getting to and winning a SB.. and people forget that the Giants winning by 19 points at the time was the largest margin of victory in a SB. They OWNED the second half of that game..
Then XLII because everyone had the Giants having NO chance and I was like.. does anyone realize that we here beating this team a few weeks ago and lost by THREE???? But noooo people were predicting scores like 41-10.. Tom Brady dissed us.. Even the official NFL site put up Patriots gear the MINUTE the Patriots scored the go ahead touchdown... now little children in Central America and wondering who are the Patriots.. LOL
46 just made my head turn because it resembled 42 so much. The only difference was the patriots werent invincible going into the suoerbowl. The runs overall were very similar
That last Super Bowl left a dirty taste in my mouth and only seven years later they topple the greatest team the NFL has ever seen. It was a great game with tough defense. Too bad I watched it alone.
to achieve the victory. I still think of all of the many plays that needed to be successful and just one of those would have prevented the victory had it been unsuccessful. Eli pulling away and avoiding the sack was symbolic of the perseverance of the team. it was by far the most gut wrenching for me and the feeling of elation made the off season a blur
but for drama and impact on my personal life XLII stands out -- I actually watched that Super Bowl on a 21" television in the home of someone who never watches football. I had flown out to Seattle to be with my son who was suffering from PTSS after being blown up in Iraq - we had been invited by one of my dopplegangers (he has the same name as I do) to watch the game at his girlfriends house - she had invited a few folks that were all rooting for the Pats - and I wore my Crispy jacket to the fray. We watched on this tiny old fashioned tube TV -- the picture was ridiculous as was the scene of us all crowded around watching it - and my son ho also doesn't give a hoot for football got all into rooting for the Giants -- and SOB they pulled it off in dramatic fashion. That final TD run was one of the most dramatic drives in football history to me - the catch - the Burress TD -- it was fairy tail stuff - even the heave from Brady to Moss at the end -- the story of Hope and Berrylish bringing Bob's ashes to the game still gives me chills. WOOOO HOOOOO - YEAH BABY!!
but 46 validated the whole thing. For years, the Tyree catch, caused others to think it was a straight fluke that we won the Super Bowl. The Pats would have their revenge this time!
Poetic justice that down again late in the game, Eli again makes an impossible throw, only this time it was the greatest throw a QB in a Super Bowl has ever made. Eat that doubters. No fluke here.
Its honestly hard to pick. 42 was probably better story wise but 46 was just so damn gratifying.
the first was such a high after watching so many down years. It featured great games by so many great players leading up to that win. For me, there can never be one better. However, the rest of those trophies brought nearly as much joy, as will the next one.
it was a glorious day after suffering with the team through the 60s and 70s. IMO the that 1986 season & XXI winner was also the only dominant team from the Giants Super Bowl years.
I never thought the Giants would win the Super Bowl. All these years later I still can't believe the 1986 season. Section 102. 12 home games. 12-0. There were legends on the 86 team, Hall of Fame Coach, the greatest defensive player in the history of the NFL. Carson, Simms, Banks, Bavaro, Morris, Burt, etc. XXV was validation and the championship game that year was the greatest football game I've ever seen. The Eli Super Bowls were great fun and a great reward for hanging in there for Wellington's second run from 1991 to 2005. But the Coughlin Giants at their best were a good team that got hot at the right time and cashed in on some very fortunate breaks in both their runs. Nowhere near the same enjoyment from start of season to finish for me.
As far as the favorite - the 1st - it finally got the Giants back. You saw the early returns in 81 and then 84 & 85. But being the favorites and winning it all is special, especially after the 70's
90 was weird. You knew they were good, but when Simms went down you realistically did not expect it. SF game changed that. Winning that game on the road you knew they were every bit as good as Buffalo.
1st Pats win, the best part about it is the drive. TD or lose. Up to that point, never had a SB where the QB faced TD or lose and get the TD. There was no FG to tie cushion. Critical plays all over that drive w/o Tyree play
SB46 - by the time they got there, having smashed GB and beaten SF while Eli got hit 35 times, they were on top of their game and I thought they would win. W/o the phantom holding call on Boothe, that game becomes a blowout. The Giants offense crossed midfield every possession of the game. Manningham gets a lot of pub, and deservedly so, for that catch, but that throw is was as good as it gets. Plus, there are few, if any other QB's who would even try that throw. The fact that Eli had the balls to pull the trigger is why he is who he is.
After years of piss poor teams this one was redemption. Along with the guy holding the sign "Dad our dream has come true". Still tears me up when I see it.
All others were special except XXXV. They didn't have the same effect on me as the first one.
Kinda like your first intimate encounter there's nothing like the first time.
Every game throughout the playoffs I just kept thinking - "please just win this game and it will be a great year." Bucs, Dallas and then GB. Going into the SB I just kept thinking "don't get blown out." There was no way they were going to win that game. Absolute magic. 90 is a very close second.
Plus, 42 represented 17 years of waiting. Going through the 90s, etc. I'm 41 so 86 didn't mean as much to me as it did to my old man. 90s was sweet but 42 I really earned as a fan.
The other games were closer, more exciting and competitive, but there is nothing like the feeling you get climbing the mountain for the first time. It felt too good to be true. The Giants winning the Super Bowl had been unimaginable before that.
The other games were closer, more exciting and competitive, but there is nothing like the feeling you get climbing the mountain for the first time. It felt too good to be true. The Giants winning the Super Bowl had been unimaginable before that.
Beating Dallas in OT in '81(despite Danelo's 2-5) coupled with a Jets win at home the next day against the Pack, was too good to be true..:)
I can't beleive only one person besides me thinks so. Not only did we end the 49ers 3 peat against a great 49er team we also beat a power house Bills team. Yes super bowl 42 was awesome to but 25 we knocked off the best two teams in football that year.
As great as those other Super Bowls were (and they were great) you just can't top XLII. The Perfect Team, greatest offense in NFL history, cake walking into the Super Bowl against the Giants.
10-6 Giants, rookies starting on offense and defense, played every playoff game on the road. "We're only going to score 17 points, hehehehe...ok."
The 2007 NY Giants vs The Prognosticators. 19-0 Perfect Season shirts and books being printed and leaked. Giants players getting invited to the Patriots SB parties during the game. Belichick not shaking Coughlin's hand after his defeat.
It was glorious. The greatest Super Bowl I have ever seen. They still hate our guts to this day. How do you humble a Patriots fan? Say two numbers, 18 and 1.
It had been 17 years since the last time. Against all odds. A QB that had the world against him and against the hated city of Boston and their opportunity at history. It's a bad movie if you really think about it. Love it.
I've also never felt that good in my life. And the afterglow is still going.
With our country weeks in to a war the emotions of the game and the excitement of the victory in candlestick it felt like winning two superbowls that year. It was the first Super Bowl my wife watched with me and my son was born in 1990. My reasons are personal. This was not only my favorite championship it was one of the best years of my life. I miss that defense.
Teams love to talk all that "disrespected" bullshit but the Giants were actually laughed at by these dickhead TV guys and ESPN anchors and in the end, they shut 'em all up.
is a sports memory that i don't think can ever be topped. period. that whole month is my favorite sports "moment" ever.
a revenge tour thru the playoffs; epic games in the divisional round and nfc title game. and then topping it off with the best super bowl ever not only in terms of the game itself, but having the greatest play ever and of course the context of beating an 18-0 team.
just too many "things" in that game to ever be topped.
Every game throughout the playoffs I just kept thinking - "please just win this game and it will be a great year." Bucs, Dallas and then GB. Going into the SB I just kept thinking "don't get blown out." There was no way they were going to win that game. Absolute magic. 90 is a very close second.
Agree with everything you wrote 100%. I remember running around all giddy like a little kid after Tynes made the kick in GB. The whole run was improbable, and to cap it off the way they did was just complete magic.
Because Alford's sack of Brady was the ultimate Deflation.
The amazing thing is all throughout the game, the Pats o-line were doubling and even triple teaming Alford. I think they just wanted to give Brady room up the middle to move. A Pats fan had broken down the Giants defense after the game and he showed pics of the blocking against Alford, and he was calling him, "the dangerous Jay Alford." Yet on that Sack, Alford was blocked by one person and blew right past him to put the icing on the defensive cake.
We dominated and were supposed to win, but all us long sufferers knew something would go wrong. When McConkey caught the rebound we could exhale and it was time to celebrate. We even had the rest of the game to do it. 25,42,46 all nail biters to the end. Celebration had to wait until the gun :)
First title season I can remember vividly. The goalline stand in DC, Bradshaw's run in the snow, the final drive in Dallas, Green Bay, and then beating the mighty Pats. I don't think any title can approach that from my perspective.
No one can ever tell ya that you couldn't dö it, 'cause ya did it!"
I was born at the end of the 60s, so I grew up in a family that loved a horrible Giants team. I remember my sister had a button of a guy in a Giants helmet but the "giant" was so puny you could only see his tiny feet beneath the helmet. That summed it up. Meanwhile, the sickening NJ Dallas fans were always rubbing your face in it. That's where my Dallas hatred grew. Then glimmers of life, playoffs! (I was at the Danelo game, too.) What happens? Our HC Perkins leaves, to go coach in college!? My sister and I joked he must have been too busy on the sidelines mapping his route to Bama to coach any more wins. Then the first Parcells season is not encouraging. This young Simms guy just can't stay healthy. But there's something about Parcells.. He is a NJ guy and just seems to fit. Then LT is like an infusion of magic, and the D is smothering, but it will never really happen, will it?
And then it did. And it was a dream come true. And never again in my lifetime could anyone say the Giants couldn't do it, because they did it.
31 years in between championships...
And a long "Lousy Football" mantra shaken off.
All of them are obviously special, but that cherry popping was huge!!!
as the Giants first and there is nothing more exciting then seeing the Giants win a Super Bowl after years of frustratingly bad football. Of course, beating an 18-0 Pats team wasn't to shabby either.
Especially coupled with the win over Dallas a few weeks prior, it's ridiculous but I think the Super Bowl 25 run may be even harder to top from a pure football pov.
Hard to believe that the 46 run, as improbable as it was sort of gets lost when comparing the four runs.
The Super Bowls with best replay value in my opinion:
the game was awesome (to the football purist), and the historical context on top of it was incredible.
The sheer arrogance of the Pats and their fans leading up to it was insane. They were all saying things like "the Giants did so well to even get here, you should be so proud of them!". And Brady's smirk when he said "we're only going to score 17 points?"
With respect to Super Bowl 3, Unitas and the Colts, The Catch, The Ice Bowl, and several others to me Super Bowl 42 is the most epic game in NFL history
for some of the reasons already stated. The franchise sucked for so long. The fans suffered for a couple of decades with a team that was absolutely horrible. So bad that many fans burned their season tickets in the parking lot a few years earlier.
After the NFC Championship that year, strangers were hugging each other as they were leaving the stadium with a look to each other that said "finally". I was able to see that same reaction from my father who was one of those who were going to the games since 1948.
This Superbowl essentially turned the franchise around and made it what it is today. So, for those reasons I am choosing XXl. This takes nothing away from the others of course.
Daniel in MI summed it up for me, but I will add that it was seeing the buildup and the realization of that championship was somehow so fulfilling. I also was a child of the 60's and went through the "years of lousy football" so seeing that built, to beat the 49ers and all those great battles. The skins were good then to and we beat them, it just seemed magical. It was the heyday of the Bears and Ditka, this is where I started to hate Buddy effin Ryan.
The run to the Super Bowl that year was pre-ordained(sp) because of the way they paid their dues and how they went about doing it. Wellington's handprints were all over that team, from Parcels on down. Simm's guttiness, Taylor's greatness, Carson's steadiness and the Suburbanites, Joe Morris all of those guys have a special place for me!
Sorry for all the spelling and grammar issues, I am not nor will I ever be eloquent.
The Road Warriors who shocked the world. We're only going to score 17 points? Hahahah, let Tom Brady hit the floor. The build up, the great plays, and being a hard fought drag down hit you in the mouth game in an era of arena league scoring against the presumptive greatest team of all time... 18-1, DENIED.
for me. Got to go to the NFC championship in Green Bay with my brother and had the whole family in the house for the SB. I agree with John Mara that it was the greatest win in Giants history.
The first one, after the team having been so bad during my early fandom, it was just such a spectacular thing to win it all. But thinking about how wonderful XLII was, I'd probably rank the 1986 season as my favorite season, but XLII as my favorite super bowl. Toppling that seemingly invincible team, silencing their fans, their coach, their QB, and doing it in thrilling fashion? That's tough to top.
XXI because of my dad. We suffered together through twenty years of football shit, and were able to celebrate the vindication together. That was special.
XLII because of my son. He's a Pats fan, and was giving his ol man a lot of 19-0 bullshit before the game. He learned a really valuable lesson that day, and it actually brought us closer together because of it.
XXI - somewhere in the middle of that season you kind of knew it was going to be a special season...and it was a great ride all the way to the end by dominating everybody in the playoffs and SB.
XLII - just a phenomenal ride thru the playoffs, especially by shoving it in the faces of the Cowboys, Packers and Patriots. Only because XXI was the first SB win, does this one come in a very close second.
... We went into Dallas, the 1 seed, the heavy favorites, a team that beat NYG twice in the regular season, a team that sent what, ten guys to the pro bowl? Then the giants win in dramatic, nail biting fashion and in the post game PC Terrell Owens melts down and cries about his QB. You can't make that up...
And that was just one little segment of the run in January- February 2008. If you wrote that script you'd be laughed out of the room.
We are only talking about individual Super Bowl games but it's hard to ignore the runs to get there. Beating Dallas like that... Fucking priceless...
Undefeated Pats. Eli Manning becoming the legend I always thought/hoped he'd be. Epic final drive, etc. Greatest win of my lifetime in any sport.
That team was doubted and discounted all year long, and they just kept winning.
It was Villanova vs. Georgetown. And we shocked the world.
2-XXV-Up against an "unbeatable" Juggernaut
3-XLVI-After the SF brutalizing of Eli
4-XXI- Yes, I know, the first one, yada, yada, yada, but we were clearly the best team in the league, so it was no surprise
Then XLII because everyone had the Giants having NO chance and I was like.. does anyone realize that we here beating this team a few weeks ago and lost by THREE???? But noooo people were predicting scores like 41-10.. Tom Brady dissed us.. Even the official NFL site put up Patriots gear the MINUTE the Patriots scored the go ahead touchdown... now little children in Central America and wondering who are the Patriots.. LOL
Undefeated Pats. Eli Manning becoming the legend I always thought/hoped he'd be. Epic final drive, etc. Greatest win of my lifetime in any sport.
Yeah my thoughts exactly
The whole thing felt like it was straight out of a movie.
Poetic justice that down again late in the game, Eli again makes an impossible throw, only this time it was the greatest throw a QB in a Super Bowl has ever made. Eat that doubters. No fluke here.
Its honestly hard to pick. 42 was probably better story wise but 46 was just so damn gratifying.
90 was weird. You knew they were good, but when Simms went down you realistically did not expect it. SF game changed that. Winning that game on the road you knew they were every bit as good as Buffalo.
1st Pats win, the best part about it is the drive. TD or lose. Up to that point, never had a SB where the QB faced TD or lose and get the TD. There was no FG to tie cushion. Critical plays all over that drive w/o Tyree play
SB46 - by the time they got there, having smashed GB and beaten SF while Eli got hit 35 times, they were on top of their game and I thought they would win. W/o the phantom holding call on Boothe, that game becomes a blowout. The Giants offense crossed midfield every possession of the game. Manningham gets a lot of pub, and deservedly so, for that catch, but that throw is was as good as it gets. Plus, there are few, if any other QB's who would even try that throw. The fact that Eli had the balls to pull the trigger is why he is who he is.
All others were special except XXXV. They didn't have the same effect on me as the first one.
Kinda like your first intimate encounter there's nothing like the first time.
Beating Dallas in OT in '81(despite Danelo's 2-5) coupled with a Jets win at home the next day against the Pack, was too good to be true..:)
Beating Dallas in OT in '81(despite Danelo's 2-5) coupled with a Jets win at home the next day against the Pack, was too good to be true..:)
Yep, those were the first steps up the mountain right there! I was at the Danelo game in 1981, and it is still a cherished memory.
10-6 Giants, rookies starting on offense and defense, played every playoff game on the road. "We're only going to score 17 points, hehehehe...ok."
The 2007 NY Giants vs The Prognosticators. 19-0 Perfect Season shirts and books being printed and leaked. Giants players getting invited to the Patriots SB parties during the game. Belichick not shaking Coughlin's hand after his defeat.
It was glorious. The greatest Super Bowl I have ever seen. They still hate our guts to this day. How do you humble a Patriots fan? Say two numbers, 18 and 1.
1986 was a great year: got married, Mets win WS, Giants win SB
I've also never felt that good in my life. And the afterglow is still going.
Teams love to talk all that "disrespected" bullshit but the Giants were actually laughed at by these dickhead TV guys and ESPN anchors and in the end, they shut 'em all up.
a revenge tour thru the playoffs; epic games in the divisional round and nfc title game. and then topping it off with the best super bowl ever not only in terms of the game itself, but having the greatest play ever and of course the context of beating an 18-0 team.
just too many "things" in that game to ever be topped.
Agree with everything you wrote 100%. I remember running around all giddy like a little kid after Tynes made the kick in GB. The whole run was improbable, and to cap it off the way they did was just complete magic.
The amazing thing is all throughout the game, the Pats o-line were doubling and even triple teaming Alford. I think they just wanted to give Brady room up the middle to move. A Pats fan had broken down the Giants defense after the game and he showed pics of the blocking against Alford, and he was calling him, "the dangerous Jay Alford." Yet on that Sack, Alford was blocked by one person and blew right past him to put the icing on the defensive cake.
Great tradition!
We dominated and were supposed to win, but all us long sufferers knew something would go wrong. When McConkey caught the rebound we could exhale and it was time to celebrate. We even had the rest of the game to do it. 25,42,46 all nail biters to the end. Celebration had to wait until the gun :)
I was born at the end of the 60s, so I grew up in a family that loved a horrible Giants team. I remember my sister had a button of a guy in a Giants helmet but the "giant" was so puny you could only see his tiny feet beneath the helmet. That summed it up. Meanwhile, the sickening NJ Dallas fans were always rubbing your face in it. That's where my Dallas hatred grew. Then glimmers of life, playoffs! (I was at the Danelo game, too.) What happens? Our HC Perkins leaves, to go coach in college!? My sister and I joked he must have been too busy on the sidelines mapping his route to Bama to coach any more wins. Then the first Parcells season is not encouraging. This young Simms guy just can't stay healthy. But there's something about Parcells.. He is a NJ guy and just seems to fit. Then LT is like an infusion of magic, and the D is smothering, but it will never really happen, will it?
And then it did. And it was a dream come true. And never again in my lifetime could anyone say the Giants couldn't do it, because they did it.
But man...beating the Bills while living in Bills country was so fulfilling.
And a long "Lousy Football" mantra shaken off.
All of them are obviously special, but that cherry popping was huge!!!
Hard to believe that the 46 run, as improbable as it was sort of gets lost when comparing the four runs.
The Super Bowls with best replay value in my opinion:
21
42
25
46
I can't answer the question sorry.
2-XXV-Up against an "unbeatable" Juggernaut
3-XLVI-After the SF brutalizing of Eli
4-XXI- Yes, I know, the first one, yada, yada, yada, but we were clearly the best team in the league, so it was no surprise
Yeah, but that first one was very sweet. You never forget your first!
The sheer arrogance of the Pats and their fans leading up to it was insane. They were all saying things like "the Giants did so well to even get here, you should be so proud of them!". And Brady's smirk when he said "we're only going to score 17 points?"
With respect to Super Bowl 3, Unitas and the Colts, The Catch, The Ice Bowl, and several others to me Super Bowl 42 is the most epic game in NFL history
After the NFC Championship that year, strangers were hugging each other as they were leaving the stadium with a look to each other that said "finally". I was able to see that same reaction from my father who was one of those who were going to the games since 1948.
This Superbowl essentially turned the franchise around and made it what it is today. So, for those reasons I am choosing XXl. This takes nothing away from the others of course.
The run to the Super Bowl that year was pre-ordained(sp) because of the way they paid their dues and how they went about doing it. Wellington's handprints were all over that team, from Parcels on down. Simm's guttiness, Taylor's greatness, Carson's steadiness and the Suburbanites, Joe Morris all of those guys have a special place for me!
Sorry for all the spelling and grammar issues, I am not nor will I ever be eloquent.
But I keep coming back to 42. The number of stars and planets that had to align to make that happen...
XLII because of my son. He's a Pats fan, and was giving his ol man a lot of 19-0 bullshit before the game. He learned a really valuable lesson that day, and it actually brought us closer together because of it.
XLII - just a phenomenal ride thru the playoffs, especially by shoving it in the faces of the Cowboys, Packers and Patriots. Only because XXI was the first SB win, does this one come in a very close second.
And that was just one little segment of the run in January- February 2008. If you wrote that script you'd be laughed out of the room.
We are only talking about individual Super Bowl games but it's hard to ignore the runs to get there. Beating Dallas like that... Fucking priceless...