Bottom Of The Barrel

Full Tilt, not such a bad idea

on February 3rd, Superbowl XLII is is going to feature the New England Patriots versus the New York Giants. Along with those two teams comes a number of story lines:

- New England's pursuit of perfection
- Patriots trying for their 4th ring in 7 years
- New York as the huge underdog, as they have been all along in this playoff season
- The Giants winning all 4 playoff games on the road
- The other Manning playing in his first Superbowl
- Manning brothers going back-to-back
- Guys with a shot at their first ring [Moss, Seau]
- Nice weather [for a change] in this year's playoffs

Watching Lawrence Tynes kick a 47-yard field goal to put the Giants into the Superbowl, it occurred to me that what is more interesting than all of these other stories is a look to the recent past and how that makes more sense today.

The Patriots visited the Giants for the last game of the regular season. That December 29th game in New York was hyped mostly because of the historical value to the Patriots because it had no impact on the playoffs - the Pats were the #1 seed in the AFC and the Giants were going to be the #5 seed in the NFC. Many had predicted the Giants would rest their starters and focus on their first playoff game however going against traditional wisdom, Coach Coughlin put his starting guys on the field and pushed for a "meaningless" victory, which they almost got and now are going to the big game. On the flip side, the Patriots and Coach Belichick have been playing full speed all season and many have lampooned the team for "running up the score" in several games. Of course the Patriots are now the only team to finish the regular season undefeated and are going for the first 19 and 0 season so those complaints are long forgotten.


Now with the big game only 12 days away, maybe we now see a new traditional wisdom with regards to playing your starters versus resting them at the end of the season. Just ask any players on the Patriots or Giants, they might agree.

posted by TheWino @ 10:27 AM