No Joy in Mudville

Posted by Jerry M. Gutlon Feb 4, 2008

It’s the morning after the mighty Patriots were humbled by the upstart New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII and, I’m sure, like the rest of Patriot Nation, I remain shocked and stunned at the ultimate outcome.

Giants 17 Patriots 14.

I haven’t been this low since the Red Sox tanked the 2003 ALCS to the Yankees. I can’t even watch the television news programs. My Lord…The 18-0 Patriots defeated by the 13-6 Giants on the NFL’s biggest stage. In the immortal words of Phil Collins, “Something happened on the way to heaven.”

What’s wrong with this picture? Actually, nothing. New York followed the blueprint I laid out in my analysis articles on Suite101 prior to the contest. That’s all. As they say, “Any given Sunday.”

Needless to say, New England head coach Bill Belichick was terse and tight-lipped after his undefeated team fell to a New York squad practically nobody in their right mind picked to emerge as the winner of this game. And, along with 99% of the rest of the prognosticators I picked the Pats.

Boy, am I wearing egg on my face this morning, or what? It can be likened to the North Vietnamese defeating the United States in Vietnam.

No matter what, I’ve got to give the Giants credit. They played terrific football, negating the Patriots’ passing game, shutting down New England’s meager attempts at running, and completing passes they had to when it counted most.

Yet, even with only 35 seconds remaining I still was relatively confident that New England would engineer a comeback. But that never happened.

I wrote a pre-game blog entry Sunday that derided the hoopla and hype surrounding Super Bowl XLII, referring to the contest as the “Stupor Bowl.”

Now the analogy has come to pass. Stupor Bowl, indeed.