The Greatest Ever?

A lot of interesting superlatives were thrown about both pre- and post-game in Glendale, AZ over the last week. Coming into Super Bowl XLII (God forbid the NFL use actual English numerals...) the New England Patriots were being given the moniker of "greatest team ever" -- and rightly so. They were the highest-scoring team in history, Tom Brady is steadily padding his stats to become the greatest quarterback ever, and Randy Moss was having one of the greatest seasons ever for a receiver (easily the best season of his storied career). That's not even mentioning folks like Stephen Gostkowski, Lawrence Maroney, Donte Stallworth, and the best third-receiver option in the league, Wes Welker. Oh, that's also not mentioning a defense that contained names like Seymour, Bruschi, Vrabel, Seau, and Harrison. Being 18-0 going into this biggest of games certainly helped the Pats' cause for being called the best ever.

Post-game, however, there was a different tune. Instead of crowning the greatest team ever, many sports analysts and would-be "experts" were calling it the greatest upset ever. At this point, I must draw the line. This was not the greatest upset ever, and there are some pretty good reasons for it.

Certainly, it was quite an upset, and whoever set the Vegas Line at 14 in favor of the Patriots must feel like a complete fool right now. But this is nowhere near the greatest ever. One upset from past years crowned the team that kept the honor of being the NFL's last undefeated team: the 1972 Miami Dolphins in Super Bowl VII (defeated George Allen's Washington Redskins). Another upset began the Patriots' dynasty of the first half of the 2000s (defeated the heavily-favored Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI). One of the most famous moments in NFL history, "Wide Right", handed the Giants an upset over the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXV. Indeed, there have been many great upsets in the forty-two-year history of the game.

The greatest upset ever, though, does not go to any of those. Anyone who knows anything about the history of this game knows that Super Bowl III takes that title and will hold onto that title for the rest of time. Not only was SB III the greatest upset in Super Bowl history, but it may have been the most influential as well. Until Joe Namath ran off the Orange Bowl turf with his finger raised in the air, the American Football League was considered a joke. The first two Super Bowls were considered mere trivialities by Vince Lombardi and the Green Bay Packers. It was believed by just about everyone that the mighty Colts would walk over the upstart Jets. But the AFL knew it had pulled nearly level with the NFL as far as football ability, and they needed one big win to prove their place in the world. The Jets provided that victory and set the wheels in motion for the moment in time by which all moments in football history are measured: The Merger. When you hear records or great games talked about, you hear the words "since the merger" or "before the merger" as a qualifier for the era that is being discussed. A team like the Patriots may not have ever had the opportunity to go 18-0 had the Jets lost that game.

Fast-forward thirty-nine years and look at the two teams involved in this year's Super Bowl. First of all, there was no justification for the bookies in Vegas to set the line at 14 points. The same two teams that were on the field in Glendale were also on the field in East Rutherford, NJ in Week 17 of the regular season, and the Giants played the Patriots right down to the end, finally losing by just three points. The Giants had shown that they could play with the Patriots in a high-scoring shootout, they just needed to pick up their defensive effort and the game was theirs. Being in the best division in the NFC didn't hurt the Giants, either -- The NFC East is probably the second-best division in football, with the AFC South being the only better one. Three teams from the NFC East had made it to the playoffs this season, all on the combined merits of good offense and ultra-strong defense. Any team from this conference had a shot at beating the Patriots, and everyone should have known it.

Now, one thing that I will gladly add the "greatest ever" tag to is The Play from XLII. Eli Manning was down, then he wasn't, then he was heaving a pass downfield, then the ball was trapped by David Tyree on his own helmet. Words are inadequate to describe exactly how ridiculous this play was to watch. Even if it had been the first play of the first quarter, this one would have stood out as one of the truly great moments in football history. The thing is that this one happened to come on 3rd & 5 in Giants territory with 1:15 left in the fourth quarter. Manning's scramble and Tyree's catch were exactly what the Giants needed at this point in the game in order to get the momentum they needed. A few plays later, victory rested in Plaxico Burress' hands in the corner of the endzone. Manning-to-Tyree, the greatest play in Super Bowl history.