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Wow what a game!

 As an impartial fan (I don’t root for neither the New England Patriots nor the New York Giants) I have to say that Super Bowl XLII could easily be ranked among the Top 3 Super Bowls of all time and makes a strong case for the best Super Bowl ever.

 Probably the only Super Bowl that I can recall that may be better than this one could be Super Bowl XXIII between the San Francisco 49ers and the Cincinati Bengals.

That game is remembered for the 49ers’ fourth-quarter game-winning drive. That day San Francisco was down 16-13 and the ball on their own eight yard line with 3:10 on the clock. The 49ers marched 92 yards down the field in under three minutes. They then scored the winning touchdown on a Joe Montana pass to John Taylor with just 34 seconds left in the game.

The difference is that the 49ers were actually the favorites by seven points  in that Super Bowl so having them winning wasn’t as shocking as seeing the Giants defeat a record-breaking Patriots team looking to make history.

Remember, in this game the Giants (NFC Wild Card) were 12 points underdogs and nobody gave them a chance, while the 49ers were the NFC West Division Champions and had the feared Joe Montana-to-Jerry Rice combo.

 Even though on January 26, 2006, NFL.com ranked this game number 1 on its list of the top 10 Super Bowls of all time I think that after Super Bowl XLII we have a new number one.

 The Patriots after all were 18-0 and had the Tom Brady-to-Randy Moss connection which produced 23 touchdowns and helped the Patriots become the most prolific offense of all time (589 points).

The Giants just had Eli Manning and a strong defense that to be honest at the start of the season was anything but intimidating.  Led by Michael Strahan the Giants defense grew in the playoffs and became one of the keys to the success of the team.

The other one was the growth of Eli Manning that one could argue started in week 17 after New York played the Patriots at home and lost 38-35 after leading the game by as much as 17 points.

Even though they lost, the momentum of that game carried into the playoffs and turned Eli Manning into a more mature and confident quaterback. The Giants never looked back and pulled the upsets of Tampa Bay, Green Bay and Dallas. This only made them strongly believe that if they were to get a second chance at the Patriots they could beat them.

That belief helped them achieve probably the second biggest upset of all time, behind only the famous  Joe Namath guarantee that his New York Jets would defeat the Baltimore Colts despite being 18 points underdogs.

 Some might argue that the Patriots 20-17 upset of the Saint Louis Rams in 2001  should be ranked second behind the Joe Namath guarantee but even though the Pats were 14 points underdogs and defeated the team known as “The Greatest Show on Turf” with an Adam Vinatieri kick as time expired I think the Giants upset should rank second. At least until all the doubts surrounding the Patriots videotaping controversy are cleared.