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Its been a while since I was treated to a nailbiter of a football game, but last night's season finale between the Patriots and Giants was just that.

For all the talk about which team was going to rest who and who had what to gain out of playing the game, both teams came out, played with complete heart and determination, and left everything out on the field. For a meaningless game, you'd be hard-pressed to find a more entertaining and well executed football contest having been played at any other point this season.

For the Giants, there was a lot of discussion about if they played their starters and got smothered by the Pats, that it would be a demoralizing loss to them heading into their playoff match-up next week. Despite taking the loss last night, the Giants have absolutely nothing to be discouraged with. They were able to get consistent pressure on Tom Brady, they got tremendous special teams work out of Domenik Hixon (including a kick-off return for a TD), and even Eli manning elevated his game to match Brady blow for blow. If anything can be taken away from New York, it was their clock management on their final drive. Down by ten and supposedly in a hurry-up offense, Eli and company allowed an awful large amount of time to tick off the clock in between plays, basically sealing their fate at the end of the game.

For New England, where do you start? They became the fourth team in NFL history to finish a regular season undefeated, becoming the first to do so since the league increased the season to 16 games. Randy Moss bettered Jerry Rice's TD receiving record by one, although it needs to be noted that Rice had his in a strike shortened season. Brady takes home the touchdowns thrown record from Peyton Manning with an incredible 50 TD passes. The Patriots set the all-time single season scoring and touchdown records, not to mention the record for the largest differential. However, all was not peachy keen for New England either. They looked lackadaisical on defense at times and left the middle open for some large gains throughout the game. Then again, they have an extra week off to rest and work out the kinks that have shown up in the past few games.

Can they run the gamut and go a perfect 19-0? Large obstacles like the possibilities of having to face the Colts, Jaguars, Cowboys, or Packers along the way guarantee that nothing is a sure thing. Still, it would be a tremendous accomplishment, don't you think?

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