SBM Exclusive Feature – Tales of Depression and Sorrow: The New York Giants

By J-Dub and Ryan Meehan

This is another installment in the Sports Blog Movement series  which takes a hard look at certain instances, or specific seasons which would make sports fans cringe in horror and pain, or expands on that to take a hard look at the long-suffering fans of franchises who have tortured their supporters for decades.

Given that, you might be asking how can the fans of the New York Giants be “long-suffering” since they have won two of the last six Super Bowls? This is where some historical perspective comes in handy. Sure, the Giants have had recent success, and Giants fans who are in their 30’s remember the Bill Parcells era. But how many Giants fans can remember the Giants’ glory days prior to the late 1980’s?  That’s what makes today’s installment so special.  Not only do we have the perspectives of life-long Giants fan and SBM contributor  Ryan Meehan, but we get to ask Meehan’s father some questions, which proves that some questions of his father, which proves that fandom, like their receding hairlines, is hereditary.

But here’s where it gets even more fun. New York Giants fans live by two basic rules: 1) Have an eyeball-splitting hatred of all things regarding the Philadelphia Eagles and 2) Knowing the difference between a case of indigestion caused by a gameday diet of Pizza Rolls and Milwaukee’s Best and an honest-to-goodness heart-attack caused by watching Eli Manning stumble-fuck the Giants into another 9-7 season.  Those simple rules allow Giants fans to bask in a glow of self-satisfaction knowing they could have spent three hours doing something perfectly productive instead of watching a bunch of men dressed like Smurfs.

Boil it all down, and what you get is a peek inside the world of Giants fandom across two generations, which means decades of watching a play-off caliber squad blowing games against teams with a winning percentage of .275. Not to mention, J-Dub is an Eagles fan, and this is a transcript of  the rarest of conversations between an Eagles fan and two Giants fan that didn’t end up with somebody taking a Louisville Slugger in the face.

J-Dub:  How long have you been a fan of the Giants?

Meehan 33: Well, my father was a fan and I was raised around a lot of Bears fans and I guess I always wanted to be a little bit different. My first memories of football were probably the 1986-1987 playoff run where the Giants basically mauled everyone in their path, including Joe Montana and the 49ers. I did have fleeting memories of the 1985 Bears but I was really young and there isn’t a whole lot that I remember so the next season really sticks out in my mind. I do remember that the only two teams that the Giants lost to that year were the Seahawks and the Cowboys, and from there they absolutely dominated. I must have watched the Broncos/Giants Super Bowl hundreds of times on VHS. I got a bunch of colored pencils and drew all over the front of the VHS tape. I put the team stickers and the score on the front, along with the logo and I think some football cards on the back. That was also the first game I witnessed that contained a safety, so that was etched in my mind as far as the rule book goes. Just being able to sit back and watch the games with my dad, without none of the concerns I have now – whether it’s about my teeth rotting, or knowing I’m going to have to buy a hobo an Icehouse tallboy to shave my back that week…When you’re really young those are the things that you hang on to. A lot of people kind of distance themselves from sports (and I did for a time) but I think that one of the reasons sports is so popular is because of the connection it allows us to develop with our families. That’s why the Thanksgiving games have lasted for so long. And I guess that’s why the Giants have always been something I have fallen back on. There is a certain brotherhood there when you share a fanbase with a team – it’s like when you walk into one of those bars that has a Sunday NFL Ticket, and you see the three guys wearing the Giants stuff amongst the Packers fans with their faces painted yellow and green. It’s crazy to think that I’ve been a fan now for over a quarter of a century.

Meehan 64: The 1958 championship game between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants drew a huge TV audience, ending in a sudden death overtime victory by the Colts. It has often been identified as the spark which launched the NFL into the forefront of American sports. I was seven, living in Bayonne, New Jersey, right across the Hudson River from Manhattan, and caught the fever.

At that time, the Giants were the only professional football team in the area, so becoming a fan was natural. When the AFL invaded the market with the New York Titans ( to be re-named the Jets after their first woeful season), there was never any inclination to switch. I have also supported the Chicago Bears since re-locating to Illinois in 1970, when rooting for the Bears was difficult (Who’s the quarterback this week?). But the Giants have always remained number one.

J-Dub: What made you become a fan of the Giants?

Meehan 33: To be honest with you, I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that everybody hated them so much. Before I was 12 years old, they had won the Super Bowl twice. All of my friends were huge Bears fans, and now looking back on it – I can see why there was that sort of “there’s something I can’t really put my finger on it but I don’t know what it was” – And of course that was the fact that the 1985 Chicago Bears were easily one of the weakest Super Bowl teams in history. I don’t care about the record, I don’t care about any of the rest of it – That team will never be as good as the people around me said it was. But I digress…

So flash forward four years from the 1986-1987 season, and here are the Giants. They have Jeff Hostetler, who is hardly the sexiest guy for the job, and Ottis Anderson, who is hardly the other sexiest guy for the job…and for some reason it just seemed like the right team to get behind. So what is that X-Factor that put this team of guys together? The answer from an ownership perspective was Wellington Mara, but the real reason was Bill Parcells. Just the way he showed up in Super Bowl 25 with that goofy sweater on – Bill Parcells was Bill Belichick before Bill was. And speaking of Belichick, he was there too – he was the orchestral part of managing that defense, which we’ll discuss here in a second.

What kept me a fan of the Giants for so long was the fact that every fall it was the one thing that I count on. We all have certain people in our lives that come and go but the Giants have always been there.

Meehan 64: It has not always been easy. The Giants produced some years that should not be discussed in front of small children. Perhaps those seasons make the Super Bowls just a little more exciting.

Meehan 33: 2003 was a great example of one such season.

J-Dub: Even I remember that season; the final installment of the Jim Fassel era. I felt sorry for Giants fans; watching that last half of that season was what I imagine watching live coverage of the Bataan Death March must have been like. But let’s not get into that here. Who is you all-time favorite player from the Giants?

Meehan 33: I am going to say Lawrence Taylor here. There are the obvious reasons and then the not so obvious ones. The obvious reason is that he could simply get in there like no other when he was one and one with some of these chumps that opposing teams would put in front of him and push them around. But not so obvious would be something that you might not have noticed.

Taylor was one of the last guys of the generation that knew how to hit AND strip. His forced fumbles were awesome because the guy he was tackling got knocked out almost every time. You don’t see that anymore. Oh, you see a lot of guys getting hit and getting knocked down. Just like you see a lot of guys fumbling and then scrambling to pounce on the ball and recover it. But very rarely do you see both things. LT would make both of those things happen at the same time.

Meehan 64: I love defense and Lawrence Taylor is defense. Michael Strahan was both a great player and a character. I think Eli Manning is a vastly under-rated quarterback who brings calm confidence and under-stated leadership to the entire team.

But, for me, it is a throwback – Joe Morrison. Morrison was too slow to be a receiver, too small to be a fullback (when fullbacks ran the ball about twenty times a game), old to be a halfback. All he did was score 65 touchdowns from 1959 to 1972, including some of the leanest years in Giants history. Over the course of fourteen seasons, coaches and players came and went, old #40 was a constant steadying force. Depending on which year you pick, he was the starting fullback or the starting tight end or the starting halfback or the starting flanker (slot receiver) or even a safety when necessary. He played hurt. He played hard. He played for the team, not himself. And he did score those 65 TDs.

Meehan 33: And I think it’s important to reiterate that the Giants were beyond dismal a lot of years during that stretch.

J-Dub: Who is your “brother-in-law” player (meaning guy you hated, but you tolerated him because he was on your team) and why did you pick them?

Meehan 33: This is weird because I guess by definition this doesn’t match my actual brother in law. My sister is married to Andy from IvyEnvy so the whole idea of me having a brother in law that’s a douchebag is just something I’m never going to have to experience. But I understand your analogy, and to match it I’ll raise you one Kerry Collins. Now as we have had some discussions back and forth about Hall of Fame quarterbacks and who is considered Hall of Fame and who is not. I brought it up back in the Donovan McNabb piece, but it was Dubs who really started it with his “30 Greatest Quarterbacks” of all time. And one fact that we always seem to keep going back to is the whole “Kerry Collins has over 40,000 passing yards” argument. Basically the story there is that just because a guy has a certain amount of passing yards, he’s not necessarily material of legend. I mean, Sports Illustrated used the Kerry Collins stat yet AGAIN in their most recent “where are they now” issue featuring Joe Montana.

Kerry’s issue with the drinking wasn’t really a problem for me, he just had a genuine look of disinterest that seemed to bother me a lot. Yeah, it’s silly and the guy did play some great football but he had a lot of disappointing moments where it seemed like he just didn’t care. As stupid as this seems to say about a football player, he always had that “dumb jock” aura about him.

Meehan 64: Tiki Barber was a tremendous running back, especially after Tom Coughlin taught him how to hold on to the ball (Coughlin made him carry a football with him everywhere he went during Coughlin’s second training camp). That tendency to fumble after a good gain had been amplified by Barber’s method of exposing the ball to easy shots by the defense. Once this was brought under control, he could take over a game with his abilities as a runner and a receiver. But it always seemed to be all about him. His criticism of others, particularly after he retired, was childish and uncalled for; this conduct raised questions about his behavior in the locker room. In comparison, Tiki’s brother, Ronde, has presented a humble and competent example of a team player.

J-Dub: Who is your “bad, but hot girlfriend” player (meaning guy who you loved but you knew was bad for your team) and why did you pick them?

Meehan 33: This is weird because I’m going to go a little bit off the grid here. When I see your description of what that means, my first thought is…OK, a girl who is beautiful but either has a drug problem or some sort of serious malfunction that is impossible to ignore. But I’m going to take this in a little bit of a different direction and say that the analogy I’d like to make here is the hot girl that you cared about and wanted her around but was just so friggin’ clumsy that it was impossible to deal with. And that New York Giants player has to be Tiki Barber. For a while, we were really zoned in on Rodney Hampton being the future of the franchise for what we expected to be a long period of time. But his injuries just became so much that it made no sense to rely on him for anything. So a couple of years go by and there is this kid with a smile that could melt both polar icecaps if you shined a flashlight on his teeth, was squeaky clean, and his identical twin had the same qualities. So he gets drafted by us, huge pressure on him and he comes out and just rocks it. But then after a couple years it becomes very evident that fumbling the ball is a serious issue, and that’s where you start to realize maybe it’s not time to buy a house with this girl because she’s eventually going to set fire to it and every instrument you have inside of it.

Meehan 64: I don’t have one. If a player is bad for the team, I’m not going to “love him.”

J-Dub: To be honest, I asked that last question really expecting to get a profanity-filled tirade about Plaxico Buress. Moving on from that, what is your personal highlight moment for being a fan of the the Giants?

Meehan 33: This is rough because although Super Bowl XXV was so triumphant, I feel like Scott Norwood’s missed field goal is more of a loss for the Bills than it is a victory for us so I don’t want to say that. It seems kind of recent but for me this one is Super Bowl XLII when we beat the Patriots because it was literally slaying the dragon. Even with all of the momentum that we had at that moment after being a wild card that made the playoffs at the last second, nobody was buying it. That combined with the fact that to most of the planet David Tyree was a virtually unknown receiver and made a catch that on other planets wouldn’t even seem believable.

I also seem to dig the fact that Hostetler as a relative unknown would do what he was able to do. The season they won XXV, they went 13-3, beat the Bears, and then beat Montana and the Niners in the NFC Championship game before winning the Super Bowl against the Bills. I don’t care who you’re a fan of, I’m sure that still makes Montana upset. He had another free Super Bowl win in front of him and we got it from the guy.

Meehan 64: Meehan 33 and 64 were watching the second half of the most recent Giant Super Bowl together. I can be quite a distraction during normal Giant games – I do not sit down. I talk to the players, call plays – and I was in overdrive for most of the game. Then, as the Giants readied for their last offensive possession close to their own end zone, I saw Eli Manning, standing alone, looking downfield. I turned to Meehan 33 and said, “We’re gonna win this thing.” Somehow, I picked up on Manning’s quiet confidence. Apparently, the team did too. A perfect drive resulted in the touchdown needed to win instead of the field goal that would have only tied the game.

J-Dub: I already know the answer to this next question, but I must ask it, especially since I am an Eagles fan. What is your personal lowlight moment for being a fan of the Giants?

Meehan 64: This is easy – THE FUMBLE. The Giants are running down the clock to seal a surprise victory over the hated Philadelphia Eagles. One more play, a kneel down by Joe Pisarcik, the quarterback, will run out the remaining seconds because the Eagles have used all of their time-outs. Then, it happens. For some reason, Pisarcik does not take a knee. Instead, he tries to hand off to fullback Larry Czonka, who does not seem to be expecting the football. The ball hits the ground, Eagle Herman Edwards picks it up and run it in for a touchdown. And Philadelphia wins.

Meehan 33: And to add to my father’s comment, the reason why I’m glad we’re doing a dual generation thing here is because a lot of football fans my age don’t even know that Larry Csonka played for the Giants towards the end of his career. That’s kind of the buried fact in all of this because the only guy who really gets the notoriety is Herman Edwards since he works for ESPN and occasionally yells at people my age that aren’t athletes about the dangers of things like Twitter.

So like I said, I’m glad that my father covered that because I couldn’t imagine the crushing feeling of living through that. But I’m going to have to go with the Wild Card game that transpired on Sunday January 5th, 2003 between the Giants and the San Francisco 49ers. Following the 2002 season, the Giants were the 5 seed and the Niners were the 4. And the Niners were without question the better team. TO was in prime physical condition, and I can imagine that the Niners were favored.

But then the second quarter happened. The Giants scored 21 points in the second quarter and at one point in the third we were up 38-14. But then everything kind of went south. It just seemed like you could see it happening. All of the pieces were in place – they were on the road, they were weakening and worn out as they had spent all of their energy, everything just hit the fan.

Jeremy Shockey dropped a pass, which happens to athletes from time to time. But with him it was so much more than that because he did talk so much trash and he was so vocal. He wanted to turn every first down reception into an NFL films moment, and some of the opposing fans hated him for it. Hell, some of US hated him for it. When he dropped that ball I could almost see and hear Nelson Muntz from the Simpsons point at every Giants fan in the world and say “Ha-ha!”

It was more than just that, I mean…defensive end Kenny Holmes got injured and that was a big part of it as the Niners exploited his end of the defense the entire remainder of the game, which the Niners would win 39-38.

What continued to haunt me about this game was the way ESPN covered the collapse afterwards. They just KEPT showing the footage over and over, and other than the obvious stuff like the drops two things will always stick with me: The Giants ended up losing that game by one measly point, and it was Jeff Garcia that engineered that comeback. When you think of the quarterbacks that preceded him it’s almost unthinkable to know he was the one who did that. So that was the worst experience for me…knowing that a game that we should have won and could have won (several times) ended so poorly. I will never forget watching the Sportscenter replays of that one.

J-Dub: To Meehan 64’s comment…I will never forget  November 19, 1978. What’s funny about what Giants’ fans call “The Fumble” and Eagles fans call “The Miracle at the Meadowlands” is that if I were doing a Tales of Depression and Sorrow on being an Eagles fan, that moment might be my personal highlight. That win turned the Eagles season around, and ushered in the era of relative success under Dick Vermeil.

Joe Pisarcik gets blamed for that moment, but what a lot of people don’t remember is that play was called by offensive coordinator Bob Gibson. Pisarcik actually objected to the play call, but was over-ruled by head coach John McVay. What was worse for the Giants is that this game was in the middle of a six-game losing streak, and the season ended with a 20-3 drubbing at the hands of the Eagles in Veterans Stadium.  Needless to say, the Giants cleaned house after that.

But what’s even more ironic is nobody remembers that Pisarcik only played three seasons in New York.  The majority of his NFL career was spent in Philadelphia where he spent five seasons as Ron Jaworski’s back-up after Pisarcik was released by the Giants after the 1979 season.

Now, as crushing of a moment as “The Miracle in The Meadowlands” had to have been, was there ever a moment when you considered changing teams? If so what caused that moment? If not, why?

Meehan 33: I think when you’re really young, you have the tendency to be a fair-weather fan more than when you’re older. You lack that sense of pride and you’re more willing to switch teams. To me, there are two times in your life that test your fanhood: When you turn 18, it tests your fanhood because at that age you are allowed to do so many other things – especially voting – that you immediately think “Hey wait a minute, I don’t have to be a fan of INSERT TEAM NAME HERE anymore”. It’s that certain invincibility you have when you’re that age.

The second one would be if you relocate after college and really want to follow the team there. This to me is more acceptable if maybe you weren’t a big fan of ANY team, and now the NFL is a part of your city life. Although I have realized the Giants have been garbage at many points in my life, I will die a Giants fan.

Meehan 64: The Fumble – As mentioned earlier,this was the pinnacle of bonehead plays, the ultimate screw-up, the Titanic of athletic decision making. And the Giants were the team that did it. Of all the faults that a franchise might have, blatant stupidity may be the hardest for a fan to endure. In the end, though, I stuck with my team. After all, after THE FUMBLE, what could possibly happen that would be worse? Right?

J-Dub: If your team re-located to another city, would you remain a fan? Why or why not?

Meehan 33: Well, realistically speaking the New York Giants are probably never going to move. But for the sake of this exercise, let’s say they did move. And since there is always so much discussion of putting another team there, let’s say they moved to Los Angeles. (Stay with me, I’m actually going somewhere with this…) They probably wouldn’t be called the Giants, and would likely go all the way with the expansion/relocation theme by making silver one of their team colors and making it a requirement that at least one guy on each side of the ball would have to sleep with a Kardashian.

In a case like that, I would have to abandon the franchise because not only did it relocate, it would have relocated out of New York. This would not only strip one of the greatest cities on earth of their football team, but it would also mean that the Jets would be there longer, which might even be worse. The point here is that it wouldn’t happen, but yes I could see myself running away from the scene of the crime if it did.

Meehan 64: The Giants’ move to the Meadowlands was a dream come true for a kid from New Jersey. Please note that even though they now play in Rutherford, they are still the New York Giants, not the Rutherford Giants. If the Giants were to move again, it would probably be to another location in the greater New York – New Jersey area. So, yes. I would remain a fan…unless they went to Connecticut. If they moved to Connecticut, too much would change; they’d probably have new uniforms in shades of mauve, whatever that is.

J-Dub: If there was one personnel decision you think could have changed your team’s fortunes, what was it and what would you have done differently?

Meehan 64: Trading middle linebacker Sam Huff to the Washington Redskins. Sam Huff was probably not the best middle linebacker of his time. Ray Nitchke, Joe Schmidt, Bill George also anchored some excellent defenses. But those players never received the publicity that Huff did when he was in New York. There was a national television piece about him named, “The Violent World of Sam Huff,” the first time that a defensive player was the focus. This report brought the aggressive play of linemen and linebackers right into your living room, up close and personnel as never before. The viewer saw the blood, the mud, even the snot dripping out of the battered noses, then protected by very little in the way of a facemask.

Frank Gifford was flashy, Lawrence Taylor was a force of nature. But Sam Huff was a “lunch bucket” kind of a guy, working down and dirty in the trenches, hitting and getting hit, the common man’s football player. When the Giants traded Huff to Washington, something left with him. With Huff, there was not just the will to win, there was an actual need to win. The Giants did not only lose a very good player, they seemed to lose that player’s spirit as well. He never had quite the same impact in Washington, but true Giant fans will always think of him as a Giant.

Meehan 33: I think my dad really nailed it there. Somehow I don’t see any way that I could get close to such a blunder, but I’ll try. And in this case, it also involves the team with the most insulting name in the history of professional sports.

I’m talking of course about Lavar Arrington. In 2006 Arrington signed a seven year $49 million deal with the Giants. On February 12 of the following year the team released him due mostly in part to the fact that he had a ruptured Achilles tendon. I understand that you can’t predict a career ending injury – I get it. But seriously – is there anybody in their right mind who thought that Lavar Arrington was going to be worth that amount of money during that time period without a significant decline in his ability to perform? He didn’t honor the remainder of his contract with Washington (which by the way was for $68 million dollars) and he was at the time raising a stink with the Joe Gibbs who probably knew a whole hell of a lot more about football than he ever will. And keep in mind during his whole career, he only had more than six sacks in a season one time.

In this case, it didn’t end up biting us in the backside, because we have won two Super Bowls since. So in a way I don’t know that it would have changed our fortunes per se, but from a salary cap standpoint it totally sucked.

J-Dub: What was your toughest off-field moment being a fan of the Giants?

Meehan 64: The off-field conduct of Lawrence Taylor. LT had made such an immediate impact on the game itself that I just assumed that he was in control of his life. He wasn’t. His propensity to do stupid, illegal things after he retired shocked me. Many athletes experience difficulties adjusting to the end of their playing careers, but I expected LT to stay connected to the team and to demonstrate pride in his accomplishments. Instead, he became the poster child of the spoiled celebrity.

Meehan 33: I agree with my father here, but I’m going elsewhere. Dave Meggett used to be one of the best “unknown” guys in the NFL when I was growing up. His ability to break free on special teams was really something special. And when he later went on to play for the Patriots I still rooted for him, where he even ended up having over 100 return yards in Super Bowl XXXI. But after his career was over, he had three separate incidents with the law, the latter of which would rob him of some of the most important years of his life. We start in 1998, where Meggett was arrested in Toronto, Canada, after authorities said he allegedly assaulted an escort worker during a menage-a-trois. A trial on the assault charge ended with a hung jury in April 2000, but the damage to Meggett’s image was done. Then, in 2006 he was working as was the parks and recreation director in Robersonville, N.C. but resigned after he was accused of sexually assaulting his former girlfriend. The very next year, he was convicted of misdemeanor sexual battery in the case, receiving two years probation. Authorities said he was allowed to move back to South Carolina to serve his probation.

But the most damning incident a few years later, I’ll spare you the details because there isn’t anything humorous about it, but to make a long story short in 2010 Meggett was sentenced to 30 years in prison for burglary and criminal sexual conduct. That means that with good behavior, his release date is slated for 2034. Taylor’s drug addiction was one thing and it did almost kill him, but the fact that this happened to a guy who seemed so harmless was really shocking. Now there is a part of me that thinks we didn’t really know him well enough maybe because of the times he rose to semi-stardom in, and maybe if we had Twitter in the early 90’s we would have at least been able to see inside of the guy and maybe picked up a couple of warning sings. But just looking back on it, it seems so hard to take.

J-Dub: If you could wave a “magic wand,” what is one thing about the Giants, what would it be?

Meehan 33: To be honest, it will always be the way that the Philadelphia Eagles have seemed to always have our number, even in their worst seasons. I would wave my magic wand and make them disappear forever. Sorry Dubs, but their constant poking and prodding of my franchise annoys me to no end. Dallas I don’t really have ill will towards…Yeah I don’t like them, but I think that not having any playoff wins since the mid nineties is punishment enough. And the Washington Redskins are a very likable team now with Griffin at the QB position. But when it comes to Philly – I always go back to that scene from “The Big Lebowski” where the Dude gets into the cab and the guy is playing the Eagles on the stereo and he objects and gets kicked out of the cab. During Randall Cunningham’s entire career with the Eagles I felt like John Goodman had just tossed Buscemi’s ashes into the wind and they landed square in my face.

The Philadelphia Eagles give me an almost sort of “sick” feeling that only they can bring out. Aside from J- Dub, I’ve never met one decent Eagles fan, and them being successful bothers the hell out of me. If there is anybody out there who hasn’t seen the movie “Big Fan,” you gotta check it out. It stars comedian Patton Oswalt as this Giants fan whose entire life is based around calling in to sports talk radio shows. There is a scene towards the end of the movie where he’s in a bar and has to find this particular asshole Eagles fan in a sea of asshole Eagles fans, which has to be like finding a needle in a haystack – A haystack that is about an acre wide. So if I had a magic wand, I would David Copperfield the Eagles right off the face of the earth.

Meehan 64: Short term, I would present the team with a competent back-up for Eli Manning. Whatever his faults, Eli has been durable. He gets pummeled all game, every game, and still gets up and runs the next play. It would be fantastic if there was someone who could provide some relief during a game and be available if (God forbid) Eli ever does go down with an injury. And sooner or later there will have to be a transition at the quarterback position; it would be great if the Giants were prepared for that to happen. How long did Aaron Rogers wait for Brett Farve to leave?

Long term, Eli Manning gets elected to the Football Hall of Fame. He isn’t flashy, he’s not a demonstrative guy, he has had some bad games, but he has proven that he can literally put the team on his back and carry it into a Super Bowl. And then, once there, produce under pressure with the game, the season, on the line. In the closing minutes of his first Super Bowl, just after the defense had stopped the Patriots, when he knew that the upcoming offensive series was the Giants’ last chance to score – and win – a sideline camera caught him just before he put on his helmet: he had a little grin on his face, like, “This is my time.” And it was. Towards the end of his second Super Bowl, I watched him standing calmly in his own end zone, the ball deep in Giant territory. And I, a life-long Giant fan trained to expect the worst, shared that calm and said out loud, “We’re gonna win this thing.” And, thanks to Eli Manning’s skill, confidence and leadership, he did, and we did.

J-Dub: I’m not sure exactly what “success” Meehan 33 is referring to with the Eagles, as in my lifetime, I’ve had to watch every other team in that division win at least three Lombardi Trophies, while the Eagles have done nothing but lay two fat, little Super Bowl turds.  But I will save that for my own episode of Tales of Depression and Sorrow.

Gentlemen, I would to thank you for you time and for this insight into the world of being a fan of the New York Giants.