PHOENIX — Today the Patriots are so yesterday. The New York Giants are America's new darlings.
Tom Coughlin is the new Coach McCrusty. It figures that a Bill Belichick clone would upset the Genius.
Eli Manning is the gee-whiz quarterback who makes Tom Brady look old. Giants defensive co-ordinator Steve Spagnuolo, not Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, is the must- have head coach for someone else's team.
Cheers rocked the University of Phoenix Stadium when Brady's last passes to Randy Moss fell incomplete. The sound extended to the press box, a serious breach of etiquette.
The mighty Patriots got taken down Sunday night. It wasn't a soft landing.
"When you start your season off, you want to make it to the Super Bowl and win the Super Bowl. There you go," said Kevin Faulk, one of the few players who lingered in the Patriots' locker room. "Everything we worked hard for was for nothing right now."
Football teams prepare to win. No one prepares to lose. That's why it's so tough to come to terms with reality when you walk off the field.
Almost to a man, the Patriots turned their backs on the 18 wins that preceded the Super Bowl.
Once the regular season ended with win No. 16 against the Giants, it was all or nothing.
"The good thing is," said Faulk, "we were able to live through this, learn, and come back next year and just work harder."
The Patriots will walk away from what they feel is the rubble of their Super Bowl.
Don't compare this team to the last great Celtics teams of Larry Bird and Robert Parish and Dennis Johnson. The Patriots won't morph into the Bruins overnight. This isn't the Red Sox model of 1986, when once the World Series was lost, it took Boston 18 long years to return to the October Classic.
Coach Bill Belichick and his front office sidekick, Scott Pioli, can't assemble the team to duplicate a season that took on a life of its own after the streak of victories kept growing.
That doesn't mean they won't try.
Pioli talked about sustained excellence on Media Day. With a Mexican beauty trying to marry Tom Brady, talking puppets, Miss Nevada, and Deion Sanders competing for attention, Pioli's words were lost in the din.
Belichick, when he began his friendship with Urban Meyer, spoke to the University of Florida football team about sustaining excellence.
That's wonk talk, too cerebral for you and me. Tell me how you're going to win today. Who cares about next year or two years from now?
Belichick does, which is why you shouldn't imagine the Patriots crumbling overnight. All bets are off if Brady announces his candidacy for Congress. The 2008 Patriots will have a new look. Belichick's goal has always been to make his team younger and better. It's not usually an either-or exercise.
The Giants did not dismantle the Patriots. It just seems that way because of what was at stake.
The Patriots were a flawed team. Games against Baltimore and Philadelphia showed that. Coughlin and the Giants found the perfect plan to expose those flaws.
Last winter, after Peyton Manning and the Colts kicked the Patriots out of the Super Bowl, Tedy Bruschi looked back before he left the field in Indianapolis.
He watched the celebration. Sunday night's loss sunk in just as quickly.
"It's evident when you're walking off the field and getting confetti sprayed in your face with the other team's colors. You realize what happened. I'm not in shock or anything like that.
"It's the Super Bowl. The winner is the world champion and the loser is just grouped into the 31 other teams."
The victory parade through the canyons of New York City is today. Don't watch.
Staff Writer Steve Solloway can be contacted at
791-6412 or at:
ssolloway@pressherald.com
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