by Hal Dickey

Created on: December 27, 2008

The best sports team in my opinion in 2008 was the New York Giants. We all love stories about the underdog, but it goes far beyond their miraculous victory in the Super Bowl over the previously undefeated New England Patriots. Consider the fact that they had slipped into the playoffs as a wild card team after finishing a distant second in their own division to the Dallas Cowboys, maybe the most hyped team in any sport. The Cowboys lived in the limelight with a quarterback who was known more for who he was dating, (Carrie Underwood, Jessica Simpson) than what he had accomplished on the football field, and a gifted but controversial wide receiver who at a moments notice, could be found either using the media as a scapegoat, or going through the media to complain about not getting the ball thrown his way.

As a wild card team, the journey to the Super Bowl for the Giants would require winning three playoff games on the road, not an easy feat for any team. This is the same team that only two years earlier, nearly had a mutiny on their hands when the players filed grievances with the union against new head coach Tom Coughlin, citing he violated union contracts with the grueling practices he conducted. This was a team who only a month before the playoffs began, had the New York Media and fans alike calling for quarterback Eli Manning to be benched. Their best wide receiver, Plaxico Burress was a castoff after failing to live up to the expectations of being a number one draft pick in Pittsburgh. And to add insult to injury, Tiki Barber, their all-pro running back who had retired before the season began after spending his entire career with the Giants, was found on the opposite sidelines in their first playoff game against Tampa Bay rooting for his twin brother Rhonde. After slipping past Tampa Bay and then Dallas, the Giants punched their ticket to the big game by knocking off Green Bay, led by future hall-of-famer Brett Favre, the sentimental favorite in what many assumed would be his final game. Then of course in the Super Bowl itself, not many people outside of the Giants locker room belived they even deserved to be on the same field with the history-chasing New England Patriots, one win away from finishing the season with a perfect 19-0 record and immortality in the annuals of the NFL. How ironic was that touchdown pass in the final seconds from Manning to Burress to pull off the improbable? Just ask the Patriots.

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