The New York Giants are just average enough to win the Super Bowl
Stop me if you've heard this before: A New York Giants team, led by a perfectly mediocre Eli Manning and featuring a rushing game allergic to the sticks, an explosive receiving star and an opportunistic defense, will waltz into the playoffs cast in the very-large shadows of teams from its own conference (and division), facing an uphill battle and an entire slate of road games to make a Super Bowl run nobody outside New Jersey, if even there, really expects them to make.
But there's one difference between the 2016 New York Giants and the 2007 and 2011 versions that won the unlikeliest Super Bowls of the past decade, and it can be found in an old axiom -- once is chance, twice is coincidence and the third time is a pattern. Because of those Giants, these Giants won't be sneaking up on anybody.
Squint really, really hard and you can kinda, sorta see New York as a Super Bowl team. They're 10-4 in what's been the best division in football, but as of seven days ago their only victory over a current winning team was all the way back in Week 1 when Dak Prescott was a backup quarterback and the Dallas Cowboys were merely a team hoping to stay afloat until Tony Romo's return. Then the Giants took the rematch against a Dallas team on an 11-game winning streak and beat the NFC North-leading Detroit Lions (who, with a brutal schedule upcoming, may be going from a five-game winning streak to a free fall in a span of a few hours).
The wins were remarkably similar and a microcosm of the season at large. New York's defense was good overall but great in the biggest spots. Dallas went 1-15 on third down, and the Lions were 5-14. Those teams scored six and seven points, respectively. Despite that, Dallas led for much of the game, and Detroit had eight possessions on which they could have tied or taken the lead but never did.
Eli and the offense played in lockstep with their opponents. Both teams last Sunday night gained 260 yards, and the Giants were 2-14 on third downs. They punted nine times and looked destined to end the game with a lone field goal losing to a lone touchdown. Detroit gained more yards on Sunday and was within a single score in all but the game's final six minutes. The game had all the trappings of one of those fourth-quarter comebacks Matthew Stafford has basically patented in 2016. And then Odell Beckham Jr. got his hands on the ball. Again.
Against the Cowboys, the volatile star took a short slant across the middle and sprinted 61 yards untouched, separating himself in the final yards like a non-metric Usain Bolt. On Sunday, the Giants faced a late third-and-1 from the Lions' 4-yard line. Fail to convert and New York was looking at a field goal and a 13-6 lead -- in other words, right where the Lions wanted them. That's what should have happened after Manning threw a pass too hard and too wide of his favorite target. But Beckham reached out and, like he does so often while goofing around in warm-ups, caught the pass one-handed, as if he was wearing a catcher's mitt (or the 1981 Oakland Raiders entire supply of Stickum) on his left hand. He brought it into the body, stuck the ball over the goal line, and a tenuous lead turned into the team's 10th win -- the first time in six seasons they've had a double-digit win total.
Beckham is setting up to be the biggest X-factor of the NFL playoffs. You'd take Le'Veon Bell if you had your pick of skill players. You might prefer Antonio Brown over the course of an entire game. But for one play it's Beckham, and given that one play is sometimes all it takes to win a title (ask David Tyree and Rodney Harrison), give me Beckham every day of the week and especially on Sunday.
Other than Beckham, the comparisons of this Giants team to the shock Super Bowl victors of the past is uncanny. The 2011 Giants were outscored by six points over the course of the regular season. The 2007 Giants (who finished second in the NFC East to a 13-3 Dallas team) had just a 22-point edge on opponents -- the same margin the 2016 team currently has. These Giants haven't scored more than 30 points once this season and have gone for 20 or less in eight of 14 games. But the defense hasn't given up 30 points once this season and has held opponents to 20 or fewer in eight of 14 games.
It's a year of perfect symmetry for the Giants, except in the only place that matters -- the won/loss columns. This is a team that could easily be 7-7 without changing very much of the season at all. The Giants have made the right plays at the right times and are now in pole position for a wild-card spot and a road trip for a probable game against the team they just handled easily or a franchise they've beat in their last two playoff runs (Green Bay) at a historic stadium (Lambeau Field) that used to never see playoff losses. The other teams were the same way. They scared nobody but weren't scared by anybody, either.
The whole idea of sneaking up is just on us -- the viewing public. Any idea that the New York Giants will be at a disadvantage in the postseason because of the franchise's past success means this year's team won't be a surprise to opponents is an insult to the eight teams the G-Men played, and beat, in their last two title runs. This isn't college, where undisciplined 19-year-olds can be forgiven for overlooking an inferior team while awaiting a bigger matchup down the road. NFL teams don't overlook opponents because they barely won the NFC East. The few teams that would succumb to such mental traps aren't playing in January, they're looking for a coach. I mean, the 2011 Patriots knew better than anybody what the Giants could do if given a Super Bowl opportunity. A lot of good it did them.
No, the advantage is on the Giants' side -- for the quarterback who is capable of making the big play and knows how to get his team to crescendo in the playoffs, for the team that huddles around that quarterback knowing it's always one step away from a touchdown no matter where it is on the field and for the defense that's shown it can hang with the best in the NFL and come out on top.
The New York Giants have done it before. They can do it again.
