My brother Ed and I attended Super Bowl XLII (that's 42 for you non-Roman-speaking folks) in Glendale, AZ. Here is my account, having seen very little media coverage, but having been there.
Back Story
For those who’ve been living in a cave since September, the New England Patriots had an undefeated season, going 16-0, the NFL’s first since the 1972 Miami Dolphins went 14-0
(they played the 3rd-weakest schedule in NFL history to date - multiplying games by teams by years comes to more than 20,000 schedules, and theirs that year was the third weakest of 'em all based on opponents' records and number of eventual playoff teams, not to mention the shorter season, but why split hairs?). The Fish ultimately went 17-0 with a Super Bowl victory that year, so the Patriots’ pursuit of perfection would require a 19-0 finish and a Super Bowl title.
And to be sure, the members of that ’72 Miami team have not been shy about reminding the world ad nauseum that a perfect New England season would at best only put this year’s Patriots alongside those Dolphins, or in the typically colorful words of famous cocaine trafficker and ’72 Dolphin Mercury Morris, “…parked right beside us like Daytona, outside pole, otherwise known as number two." What a guy. A gentleman and a scholar, that guy.
Gravity
The Super Bowl, the most-watched television event of the year, every year. (this year's game would attract 97.5 million viewers, the most-watched Super Bowl in history, and the second most watched television event of all-time, the first being the 1983 series finale of M*A*S*H which was seen by 106 million viewers - personally, I never got the appeal, but what do I know - like the '72 Dolphins thing, the M*A*S*H thing happened when television had 3 channels, compared to the 100+ channels of today) As if the landscape needed any plot-thickening, the only team standing between this year's Patriots team and perfection was the New York Giants, who in addition to bringing the whole NY-Boston thing into the mix, were the team that came closest to beating the Pats during the year, as the Good Guys rallied from two scores behind in the 4th quarter to defeat Big Blue 38-35 in the regular season finale at the Meadowlands a few days after Christmas.
The Company
Ed and I picked up our friend Bryan and his brother Sean, a couple of Brooklyn-born NYC firemen and Giants season ticket holders. I know, I know… good people, the O’Gradys.
Pre-Game Festivities
We cruised in style, in a 2008 Mustang convertible. The Phoenix area is very well set up for a Super Bowl weekend, with enough highways coming from every direction and a good loop of highway wrapping through and around the decentralized metro areas and its handful of small and medium-sized cities (Glendale, Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa) which all sit inside a half-hour radius
of one another. The result: zero traffic. Delightful. Considering this is where the Cactus League sets up shop for Spring Training every year, the sensible infrastructure is, well, sensible. We paid a premium for a parking pass in the lot right next to the stadium, but upon arrival the Po-Po advised that the (unpaved) lot would be closed all day “because it might rain.” The Weather Channel showed a 30% chance of showers. WTF. I’ve got one word for whomever genius was in charge of parking operations: f**ing gravel, numb nuts. Good God, Glendale, tighten it up. Anyway… Being sentenced to the remote lot, with no refund and no special placement closer to the stadium with respect to the fact that our parking pass cost twice as much as the one that would have otherwise had us parking here… it
wasn’t that bad, I mean, no shuttle was required, and in a pleasant twist of fate, unlike last year’s SB in Miami, tailgating was allowed. So we had a cold one in the parking lot, collected our thoughts, and headed into the NFL Experience, the free theme park outside the stadium, which wasn’t nearly as exciting as our last SB experience had us expecting. Last year, we got an open-air REO Speedwagon concert; this year, a cheeseball cover band in a tent.
(the guy above looked right at us and said, "Life on earth is short! You're wasting it!" To which I snapped, "How do YOU know what we're doin'? It's Sunday and you oughta be in church, you judgmental scoundrel!"
I've been told that on television, it looked like Willie Nelson was playing the NFL Experience, but in fact he was playing the NFL Tailgate Party, an invite-only VIP affair to which regular slobs like us could scalp for a mere $1200 per ticket. Same went for the pre-game broadcast. Last y
ear, we were right there for the FOX pre-game show which was done inside the Experience; this year, FOX set up inside the aforementioned aristocratic Tailgate Party while in the Experience, the journalistically (yeah, that's a word, as of now) lesser NFL Network did their pre-game broadcast, which was over by 1:00 when we arrived (more than three hours before kick-off). Also, there were less food and beverage vendors, making for longer lines not worth waiting in. We did, however, venture over to the Burger King NFL Trivia Challenge tent which was hosted by our Boston friend, Ryan McDonough. It was great to briefly catch up with the old boy and answer a solid 60% of his medium-difficulty trivia questions.
Below, Ed and I blocking for the King.
Inside the Stadium
University of Phoenix Stadium is a nice enough place and I’m sure the Arizona Cardinals are pleased a
s punch to call it home, but dollars for donuts, it’s got nothing on Miami’s (whoever owns the naming rights this week) Stadium, which hosted last year's Super Bowl. The concourse isn’t as wide, restrooms and concessions not as aplenty, and insult to injury, due to the same 30% chance of showers forecast, the retractable roof was closed which meant (1) sterile dome environment (meh) and (2) no military fly-over to conclude the National Anthem. Speaking of the Anthem, it was sung by American Idol winner Jordin Sparks, which inspired me to hit the beer stand. Sorry, Jordin, you sounded great from where I was standing. You did. And that's no bulls**t.
Above, Ed [middle] with Fado royalty Eric Peterson [L] and KMG [R]. Fuzzy shot. Sorry. My hand was shaking. Kickoff was approaching and I was nervous on the Patriots' behalf. The photo hyperlinks to the Fado website and that's my make-up call for the crappy shot. So click on it, then go to your nearest Fado Irish Pub, buy a Guinness, and tell 'em the Maloney Brothers sent ya.
First Half
Why can’t the Patriots move the football? Never mind, they’re just waiting for the offensive line to show up. They must have got lost on the way to the stadium. Going into the break with a 7-3 lead is concerning, as our aging defense can get tired late in the game (2006 AFC Championship vs. Indy, anyone?), and the Giants have two good running backs, the 270-lb. battering ram Brandon Jacobs and the catch-me-if-you-can-sucka Ahmad Bradshaw. With a linebacker corps whose average age is closer to Tedy Bruschi’s number than to Tom Brady’s (that’s not even a joke, it’s true), you really want as much cushion in your lead as possible.
above, the Pats first TD, coincidentally named IMG0039 on my computer. "Maroney! Numbah thu-tee nine!"
Oh well, we’re winning, the defense makes me nervous but our head coach is a genius and the offense eats balls for breakfast so while I’m not cozy, I’m not panicking either. Must hit bathroom and beer stand before halftime show.
The Halftime Show top photos: setting up stages, getting the on-field audience in place during the commercial break
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers rocked.
Second Half
3rd Quarter
The score is still 7-3, with the Pats facing a 4
th and 13 at the Giants 31.
What’s that, a 48, 49-yard field goal?
Gostkowski can hit that.
He’s hit for more than 50 at Foxboro in November, a 45-yarder at the Meadowlands a few weeks ago, and here we are in a dome – it’s money in the bank and this is a tight game, we need the points, this is no time for trickery, shenanigans, or super sized cajones, send out the field goal unit.
What?
WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?
WE’RE GOING FOR IT?
BILL, WHAT THE S**T
ARE YOU THINKING?!?!?!
This is no Monday Morning Quarterback verbiage – this is what we and every other Pats fan in the stadium and presumably across
America were saying.
Alas, an ill-conceived decision to go for it on 4
th and 13, throwing a long pass – you know, the kind we haven’t connected on all God damned day? – results in a turnover on downs.
Giants ball.
4th Quarter
Giants score, Pats behind 10-7 with the ball on their own 20. 7:54 left in the game. And just like we’ve seen so many times before, the New England Patriots methodically march down the field, in total command, and score what we all figure to be the game-winning score, a touchdown pass from Tom “I Set the NFL Single Season Touchdown Pass Record This Year and Did I Mention My Girlfriend is a Super Model” Brady to Randy “I Set the NFL Single Season Touchdown Reception Record This Year and Pay No Attention To That Restraining Order” Moss. The Pats are now up 14-10 and there’s 2:32 left on the game clock. With a Giants offense – ranked 16 of 32 in the regular season and 8 of 12 in the playoffs and with a two-minute drill that’s generally about as frightening as your little sister – we shouldn’t be worried, right? I mean, our defense was ranked 3rd in the League this year. But those of us in Patriot Nation who watched last year’s AFC title game, i.e., all of us, are really worried, and just hoping that Rodney “HGH” Harrison comes up with a nail-in-the-coffin pick or we otherwise just stop these guys one… more… time… instead, the unthinkable happens and the Giants execute the longest touchdown drive in Super Bowl history, including a superhuman play on which Eli Manning broke free of three Patriots defenders who had fists full of his jersey and connected with David “You’ve Never Heard Of Me Before But You’re About To” Tyree, who was covered perfectly by Harrison and had to leap and extend to make a catch that ESPN has already officially declared the greatest play in Super Bowl history. Soon after, Manning’s touchdown pass to a wide open Plaxico Burress (Ellis Hobbs, what the hell were you DOING on that play?) put the Giants ahead 17-14 with 29 seconds to play. To win, the Pats would need some serious heroics, and they’d need to do what they’ve done in the past but haven’t done all day, move the ball fast and connect on a couple long passes when it really counts and all the marbles are on the line. A big someone-get-the-license-plate-on-that-truck sack and a couple futile Hail Marys later, Game Off, Giants 17, Patriots 14, put it in the books and don’t look ‘cause it may burn your eyes. We knew we’d witness history today, but not this kind of history. Shock and awe. I keep hearing the word “stunning.” You bet your ass it was stunning.
Giants Fans
were totally out of control. Of course, not all of them were acting like a bunch of unsportsmanlike jerkoffs, but if I had a nickel for every finger-pointing, screaming, in-your-face version of the following:
F**k You!
F**k the Patriots!
The Patriots Suck!
F**k The Red Sox!
Yankees Rule!
How’s Your Perfect Season Now?
Eighteen And One!
I’d have enough nickels to buy the City of New York and change its name to New Boston. One guy was jawing at Ed in the bathroom, and when Ed chuckled and said, “You’re not still pissed about the World Series, are ya?” the guy shoved him and a bunch of Giants fans surrounded my brother, who took a quick head count – oops, no Patriots fans around at the moment – said, “Hey, I didn’t pay $700 for a ticket so I could get my ass kicked in the bathroom, so I’ll see you guys later!” and got the hell out of there. At the risk of sounding like a sore loser, with all the immature, offensively aggressive and hateful trash talking issued by so many New York fans in the concourse and in the parking lot, I’ve never seen as unimpressive a slice of humanity at work. One New Yorker (you know who you are) was shouting at a Pats fan in the parking lot, “Get the f**k outta here, you f**kin’ loser Pats fan! You’re a loser and losers go home! Look at you with your f**kin’ glasses! What is this, Revenge of the Nerds? Hey, nerd! Hey, loser! Go home!” Later, when I talked to that New Yorker about the incident, he apologized, “Sorry, man, I was in a total state of happiness, there was nothing that could be done.” And maybe that’s what separates the most visible New York sports fans from the rest of America. When they’re really happy, they become aggressive, insult people, and enthusiastically engage in interpersonal behavior that's simply offensive, crass, and inappropriate – that’s their instinctive behavior as inspired by happiness. I've experienced this before hundreds of times, so while SBXLII is no isolated incident, the magnitude of it serves as the cherry atop the ugliest, crappiest-tasting, most putrid-smelling cake which symbolizes the (lack of) class and demeanor of New York sports fans as known by the other 49 states if not the world. It's not that their teams a win a lot. It's how too many of their fans act when their teams win. Way to go, guys. Your parents must be proud. Something tells me you’d have behaved exactly the same way if the Patriots had won, maybe only replacing the “How’s Your Perfect Season Now?” line with something similarly juvenile about Spygate. To the Giants fans who behaved that way, you can stick your Lombardi trophy up your mom’s cornhole. To the remaining (hopefully majority of) Giants fans, congratulations to you and your team, they deserved the win and they are the Super Bowl Champions, I hope your ticker-tape parade is fun and safe, and as Giants Defensive Coordinator Steve Spagnuolo is about to take the Redskins head coaching job – you know him, he’s the guy most responsible for engineering today’s win – savor the moment.
SBXLII – CONCLUSIVE THOUGHTS
The Giants are a good team and they played great in this game. They rose to the occasion as champions do, and nobody can take that away from them, ever. The Patriots are a great team and they played horribly in this game. Their regular season performances were almost always great, some were only very good, but none were as atrocious as their play throughout the day on which it meant the most, if not everything. The game plan seemed uncharacteristically conservative – where were the trick plays? Why didn’t Laurence “I Ran For 122 Yards In Each of the Previous Playoff Games” Maroney get more touches? Why didn’t Kevin Faulk get more touches? Belichick’s decision to go for it on 4th and 13 made any kind of sense only to him, at the time and in hindsight it was equally inexplicable, however, the guy is brilliant and I trust his play calling even when I don't agree with it. The offensive line was a sieve – Brady was sacked 5 times, knocked down another 16, hurried another 8-10… - no quarterback, not Joe Montana in his prime or Johnny Unitas in his, and not even Tom F. Brady, can be effective under those conditions. The defense, although they got tired in the 4th quarter and gave up the game-winning touchdown to a mediocre offense while in perfect position to stop them for the championship, only gave up 17 points which is plenty for any offense, particularly a Patriots offense which averaged 37 points per game this season, to work with. When a good team plays great against a great team playing its worst football, the outcome will almost always be the same.
HISTORICALLY SPEAKINGThis loss was and is the most crushing defeat in
New England sports history.
Worse and more horrifying, in my opinion, than any of the tragic Red Sox losses.
This Super Bowl had every element of all previous big-game tragedies combined.
Not only was it for the world championship, the loss came in the final minute of the game, at the hands of an underdog
New York team.
Add the immense historical implications of a perfect season, football’s first-ever 19-0 record, one in which the team and its players broke a trophy case full of NFL records and with a Super Bowl win would go down as the greatest team in football history but with a loss could go down as just another team to have come close, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.
It’s like ordering the blowfish. Should you find yourself in position to order such a dish, you'll either savor the world’s rarest delicacy or you'll suffer a painful death right at the table in front of everyone.
Did I mention it came at the hands of a
New York team?
GFY
For those who’ve been living in a cave since September, the New England Patriots had an undefeated season, going 16-0, the NFL’s first since the 1972 Miami Dolphins went 14-0 (they played the 3rd-weakest schedule in NFL history to date - multiplying games by teams by years comes to more than 20,000 schedules, and theirs that year was the third weakest of 'em all based on opponents' records and number of eventual playoff teams, not to mention the shorter season, but why split hairs?). The Fish ultimately went 17-0 with a Super Bowl victory that year, so the Patriots’ pursuit of perfection would require a 19-0 finish and a Super Bowl title. And to be sure, the members of that ’72 Miami team have not been shy about reminding the world ad nauseum that a perfect New England season would at best only put this year’s Patriots alongside those Dolphins, or in the typically colorful words of famous cocaine trafficker and ’72 Dolphin Mercury Morris, “…parked right beside us like Daytona, outside pole, otherwise known as number two." What a guy. A gentleman and a scholar, that guy.
of one another. The result: zero traffic. Delightful. Considering this is where the Cactus League sets up shop for Spring Training every year, the sensible infrastructure is, well, sensible. We paid a premium for a parking pass in the lot right next to the stadium, but upon arrival the Po-Po advised that the (unpaved) lot would be closed all day “because it might rain.” The Weather Channel showed a 30% chance of showers. WTF. I’ve got one word for whomever genius was in charge of parking operations: f**ing gravel, numb nuts. Good God, 
wasn’t that bad, I mean, no shuttle was required, and in a pleasant twist of fate, unlike last year’s SB in Miami, tailgating was allowed. So we had a cold one in the parking lot, collected our thoughts, and headed into the NFL Experience, the free theme park outside the stadium, which wasn’t nearly as exciting as our last SB experience had us expecting. Last year, we got an open-air REO Speedwagon concert; this year, a cheeseball cover band in a tent.
ear, we were right there for the 
The score is still 7-3, with the Pats facing a 4th and 13 at the Giants 31. What’s that, a 48, 49-yard field goal? Gostkowski can hit that. He’s hit for more than 50 at Foxboro in November, a 45-yarder at the Meadowlands a few weeks ago, and here we are in a dome – it’s money in the bank and this is a tight game, we need the points, this is no time for trickery, shenanigans, or super sized cajones, send out the field goal unit. What? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON? WE’RE GOING FOR IT? 
GFY