I Just Don’t Get It…Why Is the Media So Convinced that the Giants are Overwhelming Favorites?

So, I am a total sucker for sports talk radio.  I listen to way too much of it from national perspectives to local talkshow hosts.  So, because of that, I seem to always have a decent pulse on the various opinions and takes on the major sporting events.  Usually, there is a general consensus, with some dissenting opinions here and there.  Not this year…and it might be the single most confounding general, unwavering opinion that I can recall in all my sporting experience.

Every single opinion I can find – from the national media to New York and even Boston – that seems to believe that Patriots are anything but major underdogs in this game.  The Vegas line opened at 3 (which was SHOCKINGLY low to me) and has actually been bet down to as low as 1.5 in some places, and never higher than the original 3.

In fact, if you just listened to the so-called “experts,” you would think that the Giants were a double-digit favorite in this game.  And, quite frankly, I JUST DON’T GET IT.

Here are some of the comments I have heard (many of them multiple times) in the two-week pregame show that is our mainstream media:

“The Giants are just clearly the better team.”
Really?  Has anyone actually watched either of these teams or paid attention to the season in any way?  

The Patriots were 13-3 and cruised to the #1-seed in the AFC.  They went 5-1 in a division that included a Jets team that had been to back-to-back AFC Championship Games, an upstart Bills team, and a Dolphins team that was one of the better teams in the league after an atrocious start.  The Pats won 9 games by double-digits and were within a touchdown in all 3 of their losses.

The Giants were 9-7 and snuck into the playoffs by barely winning the worst NFC East in history, including being swept by the 5-11 Redskins.  5 of their 9 wins were close (within a touchdown), and that doesn’t even include double-digit wins over the Eagles (Week 3) and the Cowboys (Week 17) in which they trailed in the second half before some garbage time points pushed it into double-digits.  They had four double-digit losses, including 14- and 13-point losses to the lowly Redskins, an 11-point home loss to the long-travelled Seattle Seahawks, and an embarrassing 35-point loss to New Orleans in the Monday night spotlight.

Oh, and this great Giants team actually GAVE UP MORE POINTS THAN THEY SCORED THIS YEAR.  The Patriots?  Ya, they outscored their opponents by 171 this year…that’s right, ONE-HUNDRED, SEVENTY-ONE POINTS.

So, how, again, are the Giants “clearly the better team?”

“The Giants are just the hotter team coming into the Super Bowl.”
Again, I don’t understand how this can be said with a straight face.  The Giants finished the season 4-4, including a 13-point HOME loss in a must-win Week 15 game to the Redskins.  And, the Patriots?  They haven’t lost since NOVEMBER 6^TH!

Ya, but didn’t the Pats almost lose the AFC Championship Game two weeks ago?  Yes, yes, they did.  To a very, very good Ravens team.  Did we forget what happened in the NFC Championship Game?  Two bad San Fran fumbles simply handed the G-men 10 points – and they needed every one of them in an overtime win over a team with Alex Smith at quarterback.

Sure, but the Giants beat the Packers in the Divisional Round.  Yes, they did, and it was a very good win.  But, how quickly we forget that the Pats absolutely torched the very highly-touted Denver defense for 45 points in an outright laugher.  And, that was coming off a Week 17 game against Buffalo where the Pats scored FORTY-NINE unanswered points to clinch the top seed. 

Oh, and did I mention that the Pats have won 10 in a row and the Giants have lost 4 games since the last Pats loss.

How, again, are the Giants the “hotter” team?

“Eli Manning might not only be the best quarterback in his family…”
This is just laughable.  I’m not going to go too much into this because this isn’t about Peyton (or Archie), but let’s just chalk this up more evidence of the delusion of the media right now.

But, we can look at one that is more relevant this week.

“…but, Eli might be the best quarterback in Super Bowl XLVI.”
Okay, let’s address this because this is even more laughable.  Tom Brady might be the greatest quarterback of all-time.  And, the one part of the prior argument between Eli and Peyton (Eli is “more clutch”) fall VERY short in this one.  Brady has 5 AFC Championships and is one game away from 4 Super Bowls.  He has thrown 300 touchdowns and only 115 INTs.  He is 21 yards shy of 40,000 yards.  He has completed 63.8% of his passes and has a QB rating of 96.4.  Oh, and he has a 124-35 career record as a starter (16-5 in the playoffs)

Eli?  He has only won a playoff game in one season prior to this year and is a slightly better-than-mediocre 69-50 in the regular season.  He has throw 185 TDs (115 fewer than Brady) and 129 INTs (14 MORE than Brady).  His completion percentage is 58.4% and QB rating is 82.1 (both lower than the league averages for starting QBs).

Ya, but we’re talking about this year, and Eli has had the best year of his career this year.  Right.  Eli threw for a career-high 4,933 yards, had a 61.0% completion percentage with 29 TDs and 16 INTs.  Way better than the 2011 Tom Brady season, right?

Not even close.  Brady threw for 5,235 yards (almost 300 more than Eli), 65.6% completion percentage (4.5 points better than Eli), 39 TDs (10 more than Eli), and 12 INTs (4 FEWER than Eli).   You can’t find a measure that you could even use to make the argument that Eli is better than Brady.  He’s clutch?  Yes, Eli led 3 game-winning drives this year.  Well, Tom Brady led the league with 7.

So, how, again, is Eli the better QB in this game?

“Eli is, at least, the hotter quarterback in this game.”
(I’ll resist the temptation to make a sophomoric joke about physical attractiveness differences between these two men.)

Yes, Brady, by his own admission, “sucked” last week.  He didn’t throw a TD pass, but did lead an offense that scored 23 points against the best defense in the AFC and was not “gifted” any of those 23 points.  How was Eli so much better last week?  If not for two bone-headed fumbles by Kyle Williams on punt returns, the Giants would have scored a mere 10 points and would be watching Alex Smith try to outduel Tom Brady today.

Plus, it’s not like Brady has been bad for a while now.  He did throw five TD passes in the FIRST HALF against the Broncos.  He also led 7 straight touchdown drives against the Bills in the final regular season game.

So, how, again, is Eli playing better right now?

 “The Patriots defense is just so much worse than the Giants defense.”
Is it?  Really?

Yes, the Pats were ranked 31^st in team defense (as far as yards allowed, which is a pretty flawed measure anyway).  But, the Giants were 27^th, so how much better can the 27^th-ranked defense really be than the 31^st-ranked D?

Plus, is the game won by the team that gains the most yardage?  Or, is it the team that scores the most points?  The Patriots were 15^th in the league in points allowed, as their “awful” D gave up 342 points this year.  What about the Giants?  Well, their defense gave up 400 points, which has them ranked 25^th in the league.

And, these defenses can only be judged in any individual game by how they match up with the opposing offenses.  Well, the Patriots scored 116 more points than the Giants and gained almost 700 more yards.

So, how, again, is this Pats defense so much worse than the Giants defense?

I could go on and on with this, but I think the point has been made.  I’m not saying that the Giants can’t win this game.  I’m not even saying that they won’t win this game.  All I’m saying is that if they do win the game, I, personally, will consider it one of the bigger Super Bowl upsets in my memory. 

It’s just bizarre how people feel that the Giants are such overwhelming favorites.  I even heard someone say that the general consensus among writers is that the Giants will “win by 3 touchdowns.”  Sports Guy talked about how the Pats could benefit from the “nobody-believes-in-us theory.”  Huh?  Nobody believes in them?

I just don’t get it…