While watching the third quarter of what would eventually be a division-clinching victory for the New York Giants over the Dallas Cowboys, I saw a commercial for Pepsi Max featuring New York Jets head coach Rex Ryan, quarterback Mark Sanchez and the rest of Gang Green. Earlier today, I also watched the majority of the Jets' season-ending loss to the mediocre Miami Dolphins, but didn't see Giants head coach Tom Coughlin or quarterback Eli Manning selling any zero-calorie carbonated soft drinks. All season, New York football has been a story of the Jets failing to live up to all the hype that surrounded them throughout the season, and of the Giants overcoming injuries and adversity to take the NFC East title. Today more than any other this season, I'm proud to be a fan of the 2011 New York Giants.
While I'm happy that the Giants will get to host the Atlanta Falcons in the first round of the NFC playoffs next weekend, I'm even more proud of the effort that my Giants put forth the entire season. From the start of the preseason, all I heard was talk about how the Giants were no match for the more talented (on paper, anyway) Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys. People wrote off Big Blue when they dropped their season opener in Washington, and again when they lost tough games to New Orleans, Green Bay and Philadelphia later in the year. At the same time, many crowned the Jets as the AFC favorites before any games were played. As a result, the Jets got the bulk of the endorsement deals. At the end of the season, though, the Giants got the bulk of the wins.
Few people expected much from Victor Cruz or the rest of the Giants this season.
I'm the first to admit that there's no real rivalry between New York's two NFL franchises. With the exception of last week, when the Giants beat the Jets at MetLife Stadium in what was technically a road game, the two teams rarely impact each other. This year, however, the two battled for much more than the newspaper headlines - the Giants victory all but ended the Jets' season even before Gang Green played an uninspired game in Miami today. On the flip side, Rex Ryan's constant trash talk fired up the Giants to the point that Big Blue not only took down the Jets, but rode the momentum through tonight's impressive and complete victory over Dallas. As a fan of hard-nosed football, I couldn't be more happy about the way the regular season ended for the Giants - the team let their play do the talking, put together two of their best games of the year and earned a well-deserved playoff home game.
I don't in any way think that the Jets extracurricular activities - the commercials, the trash talking, the spotlight - had anything to do with the team's disappointing 2011 season, just like I don't believe that some sort of "No one believes in us!" mentality is what propelled the Giants to a strong finish and the playoffs. Instead, I believe that the Jets were overrated from the start and that the Giants were deeper and better prepared than many people gave them credit for. At the same time, though, the alignment between the Giants' blue-collar work ethic and NFC East title is extremely satisfying to Giants fans everywhere. And I'd be lying if I said that the correlation between the Jets' sense of entitlement and late season collapse wasn't a little bit satisfying, too.
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