We'd Be Remiss To Let The 8th Anniversary Of The Best Super Bowl Ever Pass Without Comment

TRIGGER WARNING: There are a lot of Pats fans stoolies who I deeply appreciate for reading and enjoying Barstool New York. If I were you guys, I’d skip reading this one.

I think we’d be remiss to let the 8th anniversary of the greatest Super Bowl of all-time pass without mention. For any Giants fan, the date February 3rd is seared into your memory as the greatest day of your life. People have more than one kid, people get married or fall in love more than once, but I promise that you will never have one of the best leaders in franchise history have his final career game leading a group of scrappy underdogs to toppling one of the most dominant teams in NFL history.

And you’re damn right I’ll be celebrating tonight by watching the full game again. Some people may say “That’s because you have no life or girlfriend and have nothing better to do.” And to that I say no, Dad, it’s because I want to feel it all again. To see Strahan’s last sack. To breathe a sigh of relief as Asante Samuel drops what would’ve been the game-sealing pick. To hear Joe Buck announce the greatest moment in Super Bowl history with the passion and excitement of Jeb Bush on Quaaludes. To remember when Plax made that catch and I turned to my brothers and Dad and us all giving each other with the same “HOLY SHIT THEY MIGHT ACTUALLY DO THIS” look.

And I’m also re-watching because I know how important today is. Today was the start of when Giants fans gained the weirdest bragging rights in sports: no one would call the Giants an “elite franchise” per se, we miss the playoffs all the time, but no other team has won multiple Super Bowls in the past 8 years. The Giants are like that kid in high school who sucked at everything but somehow dated the hottest girl, so you couldn’t really say anything to him.

And I’m re-watching because I love the Giants more than I love anything else in the fucking world, and this game’s significance will be a part of Giants fans lives forever. This day, Eli Manning became forever intrinsically tied with the unquestioned two greatest quarterbacks of the past decade and a half, one by blood and one by competition. And unless Tom Brady makes the Super Bowl three more times and beats the Giants each time, and Cam Newton has the worst game he’s had in 13 weeks and Luke Kuechly forgets to get on the bus to Levi’s Stadium, Eli has the upper-hand and can scream SCOREBOARD to both of them. You can say that Super Bowl 42 was a fluke. You can say that if those two teams played 10 times, the Patriots would’ve won 8 or 9. That’s fine. I hope your hypothetical Lombardi Trophies make you very happy. As for me, I’ll be kicking my feet up in the air and having a big smile on my face because the sports gods don’t owe me anything for the rest of my life. I have today, and to me and the rest of the Big Blue faithful, today will always be enough.

Twitter is @CharlieWisco