Top Ten Cloves: Good Things About Losing The Super Bowl and Ending Up 18-1

News Item: 'Free fallin' out into nothing'

10. Telling people who know nothing about football, or the NFL, that you went 18-1 will impress them

9. You can go golfing, rather than wasting your time taking part of the downtown parade that was being planned

8. You get to beat up on the media, saying how, just like in the primaries, they all got it wrong

7. You give your fans a real good reason to, now, extremely dislike both Manning brothers

6. Don't have to worry about if the bigger, winning pay check will alter your tax status

5. Better chance of getting sympathy hugs from Tom Brady's supermodel girlfriends' supermodel friends

4. Don't have to spend your off-season, bogged down, sorting through endorsement offers

3. Well, losing the Super Bowl rules out, pretty much, that Bill Belichick spied on the Giants

2. The value of the ticket stubs of your family members attending the game will fetch huge dollars now, on eBay

1. It's football, so you're post-game explanation of the collapse doesn't have to deal with questions of why Bill Buckner was in the game in the 10th inning, instead of being replaced for defensive purposes














Bonus 18-1 Riffs

Boston Globe: Complete Patriots, Super Bowl XLII coverage

Jackie MacMullan: In the end, it was all for naught

Mike Reiss: The pressure no doubt got to them

Christopher L. Gasper: 18 and done - Patriots' bid for perfect season has one fatal flaw as Giants pull upset

18 - 1

This is to follow-up my post, from the end of December, when the NFL season ended and the New England Patriots went 16-0.

In it, I noted a nearly lifetime of disappointments associated with the Patriot franchise and how unbelievable it was to see their current success.

Tonight, for millions here in New England, and elsewhere, the perfect season dream ended, with a blistering, thrashing, Joe-Frazier-in-Manila, beating.

The New York Football Giants tattooed the Patriots, in case you haven't heard by now, 17-14, in Super Bowl 42.

And, while it was a thrilling game, right down to the final minute (not a common occurrence in the Super Bowl), the score is a bit deceiving.

The Giants kicked the Patriots asses, in the trenches, on the line, standing them up and knocking them down.

Again and again ... Over and over ...

Tom Brady is going to seriously sore tomorrow ... It almost seemed, for a good chunk of the game, that it was mandatory they bat-and-beat Brady around.

While Manning, the 3rd, will win a great deal of attention (he was named MVP of the game, giving the history books a new entry, for back-to-back Super Bowl MVP brothers, as Peyton won it last year), for driving the Giants down, with less-than 3:00 left in the game, for the winning touchdown, make no mistake about who won this game.

The Giants defense.

They totally disrupted Brady & Co., making them, quite uncharacteristically, pedestrian for most of the game.

The Patriots were outcoached as well, also something uncharacteristic.

This was one-for-the-ages, perhaps equal to, if not surpassing Namath, and Super Bowl III.

Congrats to all you New York Football Giants fans out there ... It was a great game and, as it should be, on the field, the better team won this evening.


Giants Win Super Bowl

Giants Beat Patriots 17-14

New York Giants win Super Bowl