So is there any plan of a podcast with Bill and Aaron this week where they talk about how everything went wrong, and how the Pats apparently were beatable by the lowly Giants?

This was the Simmons piece I waited all season to read. Pats fans strutted around all year like the biggest bags of hot air & handed themselves "immortality" before they sealed the deal. Now it's all gone "poof" & I couldn't be more happy about it. Finally some relief from the endless puff pieces about the "Patriot Way" & how awesome Tom Brady is.

The giants won the game. Their fans do not need the patriots fans to be gracious to validate their achievement. The victory does that. The thing i noticed about the game was that brady's ankle prevented the patriots from doing the moving pocket more.
On a side note, just off the top of my head, the pats use it against high pressure teams (2005 denver playoff game, 2003 car superbowl game), to get brady time to throw deep.

I wanted to enjoy the article more than I actually did. Or maybe I wanted to hate the article more than I did, I can't decide.

simmons has been an odious homer for quite some time now and this article simply reeks of type of nonsense that earned him that reputation. i greatly appreciate the manner that the pats fans who run FO keep their enthusiasm for their team separate from their analysis of the game. simmons is the antithesis of that.

it seemed to blame the outcome of the game on the patriots 'losing' when it's clear to anyone who watched that the giant went out there and took it from them. and the ode to the lost brady moment in the column is where i had to stop reading because it was making me physically ill.

as much as i once admired simmons work (i thought is pieces on the patriots victory in super bowl xxxvi were superb) i can trace my dislike for his work to his article on the boston marathon where he ridiculed the participants in the race and lauded his 'friends' who abandoned the effort to get drunk. i quit reading him completely when his success seemed to acerbate his unpleasant misogyny.

his support of boston teams isn't objectionable in and of itself, it's his ever-present smug attitude about it. sorry bill, patriot/red sox/celtics fans are no better than anyone else no matter what the team's success or lack of. we don't dislike you for your loyalty to your teams, we dislike you for your arrogance that, for some reason, you seem to think is part and parcel of said fandom.

The thing i noticed about the game was that brady’s ankle prevented the patriots from doing the moving pocket more.

Wow, that's impressive. See, I wasn't able to tell that, since my view of Brady's ankle was constantly obscured by the Giants defensive linemen draped over him.

The part of the article where Simmons whines about missing out on his "dream date" with Brady may be the single gayest moment in the entire history of sports journalism.

What choice does Simmons have but to be gracious and humble after his 18-0 Patriots lose in spectacular fashion in the Super Bowl? We heard some of the same humility after last season's AFCCG loss, but Simmons was right back up on the Manning-bashing horse this season, when his Patriots rebuilt and rebounded. Now it's the other Manning he must offer back-handed compliments...

re: 6
true, let me rephrase that then. even if the patriots used the moving pocket more, the giants may have still gotten as much pressure if not more. All i'm saying is that the patriots usually use the tactic to get brady time to throw.

Hmm... well, I found that to be a pretty humble, sensible article. Sure, he does lean a little too much to the 'Patriots lost' side, whereas to me it looked - up until the last five minutes, anyhow - as if the Giants were the team failing to capitalise on their opportunities to take control. But reasonable people can differ on a point of analysis like that, especially in a game that was so very close.

I was almost hoping that he would play the part of the whiny, spoiled, smug, arrogant Patriots fan we've all come to know... and, er, dislike. Simmons being all sensible and humble about NE kinda threw me for a bit. But hey - there's always next season, right?

After making it through an entire Simmons column, I have 2 thoughts:

1) That whole "chillin' with Brady" fantasy was one of the creepiest things I've read in a while. If I were Brady, I would seriously look into the possibility of a restraining order.

2) Leave it to Simmons to figure out the REAL reason why the Pats lost. They forgot to pack their Arrogance and Swagger. Obviously.

I reiterate my suggestion that the Play go down in history as :

The Unpossible Completion

"The Hat Trick."

11: LOL at point 1.

5: regarding misogyny

I've always been annoyed that in his writing, women are treated as inferior annoyances with fickle concerns who can't possibly understand sports. I can't tell if it's sincere misogyny, or part of his writing pose/sense of humor. But yes, it's one of a few reasons I stopped reading him (I made an exception for this column of course!).

#1-2 and 5: You guys made my night. It's been so sweet seeing the other shoe drop.

#4: Same here. I didn't even think Simmons would write an article about Perfection Denied, to be honest. I really did think he'd suddenly go on a "vacation".

#7: When I was reading that bit I kept wondering how the hell he could actually think Brady would even let him in to any private party instead of telling him to get out. Methinks he just wanted to chat up Gisele more than anything.

Simmons got his start with an "Outsider"ish Joe Fan schtick. His homerism is much more aggravating now that he is such an insider. Wants it both ways and it doesnt work as well. Also all of the wrestling and MTV reality show riffs from a father of two inappropriately juvenile.

Love that his wife beat him in both the regular season and playoffs picking games. (My non-sports interested French wife gets a kick out of her mini-columns).

Talk about someone who was in the right place at the right time. His career perfectly coincides with the renaissance of Boston sports. I keep thinking there is someone much more talented from Atlanta or Minneapolis that didnt catch his break.

The Brady post-game party drop is just lame. Simmons also overrates how much New England lost this game when most people can see that New York won it. Otherwise, I thought it was a pretty solid effort from BS.

"Also all of the wrestling and MTV reality show riffs from a father of two inappropriately juvenile."

I have always thought that since I started reading him years ago, and it was always a turnoff. But let's be real here--Simmons is hardly the only over 30 person in America who acts this way. Everybody else his age and older does too it seems like. And sometimes I get depressed by that. Why should a 35-year old married father of two care about ANYTHING some 25-year old drugged up female celeb does or says? At all?

I'll give Simmons credit for even writing the column but not too much credit for the same reasons #8 says.

Plus I find it incredibly hard to believe Brady would've even celebrated a win the way Simmons says he would anyway. He'd have done the exact opposite. Millionaire athletes with supermodel girlfriends don't just go back to the hotel and quietly sip drinks all night.

I dont want to come off as TOO harsh on Simmons I think he's funny and I read all of his columns - page down button is great for wrestling and MTV stuff.

If they switched him to insider would I pony up? Absolutely not. If I won't pay for Peter Gammons I certainly wouldnt pay for Simmons.

Simmons also overrates how much New England lost this game when most people can see that New York won it.

The thing is, he does that with every team; nobody ever just wins in a fair contest, the other team 'chokes'. It's a moral failure to lose. That's just the way he is. On the one hand, I'm somewhat heartened that he's willing to kick the Pats in the same manner; on the other hand, it's a really, really, really stupid way to look at things.

I think Simmons was fairly gracious, but stuff like "they caught a few breaks", "they were luckier" and "you could point out all the different times the Giants caught a break or had a ball bounce their way" did not tally with my experience of the game.

If the Giants had lost, they'd be looking back at the DB falling down on the Moss td, the int bouncing off Steve Smith and into the NE defender's hands, not getting the 12th guy off the field in time and NE having enough time to review the play and throw the challenge flag...

I don't think either team was lucky or unlucky or got more breaks: the Pats just got beat.

I like Simmons' articles, but it helps that I'm a Boston sports fan too. Thing is, I can tell that Simmons is the type of guy I would never want to hang out with. Sure, I like reading his thoughts on sports, but do I need to hear about his last Vegas trip and how many strippers he slapped on the butt? No.

someone tell Pat to check out profootballtalk.com I'm not the only one who wondered why the patriots didn't use the moving pocket more.

I stopped reading simmons' articles after his atrocious coverage of last year's super bowl. i had to read this one. Shocking that he always counts on the pats to find a way to win but for some reason he "felt" at the half that the Pats were in trouble. Many of the comments here are spot on, and I agree that it is hard to find all of these 'breaks' that the Giants got. Guess that is just the homer in him writing and not wanting to admit that the "greatest team ever" were beat fair & square.

Manning Face = Face of a Champion

Last year Simmons wrote (paraphrasing) "The Colts deserved to win. I'm not going to whine about the officiating. I'm not going to whine about the bogus pass interference on Hobbs or the atrocious holding call or the overall one-sided officiating against the Patriots. I'm better than that. Congrats to the Colts."

This one wasn't nearly as bad.

> When I was reading that bit I kept wondering how the hell he could actually think Brady would even let him in to any private party instead of telling him to get out.

ESPN wields a fair amount of power and Simmons is now the network's #1 Page 2 writer. Unfortunately in his case that distinction carries some cachet...

Simmons is supposed to be a homer. That's his job. He writes a column from the perspective of a fan, not as a journalist. You need to be sure to understand where the article is coming from and enjoy it for what it is. I do.

> Simmons is supposed to be a homer. That’s his job. He writes a column from the perspective of a fan, not as a journalist.

That's fine. Not all fans are nearly so obnoxious though (I would suggest that most aren't). As recently as his last podcast Simmons was still referring to Peyton Manning as a "choker" against all evidence-- to his credit Aaron called him on it and dismissed the suggestion as ridiculous. That kind of talk is beyond old and tired by this point. And many of us relish seeing the guy have to eat it for a change.

I'm a New Englander who is not a Patriots fan but is a Red Sox fan, and I dislike the fact that the guy represents the region in any way, even accounting for some acceptable level of "schtick". In fact it pains me that Simmons was in a position to profit from that "Now I Can Rest in Peace" book mere months after he had once again written off the Red Sox (for illogical reasons), and worse yet MLB in general. The guy is the worst kind of frontrunner...

I had the exact same reaction to the article as Charlie in #23. My only disappontment was that I ws really, really hoping he'd have done a running diary. Now THAT would have been fun.

#27: Last year Simmons wrote (paraphrasing) “The Colts deserved to win. I’m not going to whine about the officiating. I’m not going to whine about the bogus pass interference on Hobbs...

I have to say, it seems like "whine" has been the Patriot Nation buzzword for at least the last 12 months. I've not heard any criticism against the team that hasn't been labeled "whining" by some member of the media. Even though Pats fans have been gracious in defeat this week (and rightly so -- there was little in the SB this year that could be considered controversial), they can't let go of the term. Now after the season is over, and there is no more to accuse other teams of whining about, it's moved on to Sen. Specter and the possible Congressional investigations.

I'll tell you this right now: there will, for the foreseeable future, be a direct relationship between the frequency of use of the "whiner" label and how much the rest of the nation rails against your team and its fans. Quash it wherever you can.

The new complaint that's getting tiresome is this "the Giants need to be given credit for winning, talk about the Patriots losing is bad sportsmanship!". Nonsense. If a heavily favored undefeated 18-0 team with a bunch of all-pros gets beat by an underdog that played mediocre football most of the year, of course it's fair to say "the Patriots lost." Just as it's fair to say the Rams lost in 2001. On paper the Patriots are clearly more talented, they beat superior teams in the playoffs by bigger margins than the Giants beat their opponents and in DVOA the Giants played them no better than even, and only won thanks to an amazing fluke catch to keep that last drive alive. If there was ever a "choke" then this was it. Simmons is really far too nice in this column. I think a lot of Pats fans want to give the Giants undeserved credit because it's embarrassing to admit just how badly the Patriots screwed this one up.

Okay, but to say that the Giants "only won thanks to an amazing fluke catch to keep that last drive alive" is taking it too far, and an example of what incites the criticism you object to. At best this was an even game in which the Giants received only the last lucky bounce, at worst the Giants marginally outplayed the Patriots on balance (for whatever reasons, including Patriots' underperformance). I lean towards the latter conclusion, actually.

RE #29: "Simmons is supposed to be a homer. That’s his job. He writes a column from the perspective of a fan, not as a journalist."

this is precisely the reason i find his current work so disappointing. when the patriots won their superbowl at the start of the decade simmons articles were fantastic. they completely captured that euphoric giddy feeling of a fan who has long suffered and been redeemed. sure, it was for his team, but any giant fan can go back and read those stories today and say "that's exactly how it feels."

the patriots have now climbed about as high as a team can get and fallen just as far. if there is an analogy it's icarus, not david and goliath. and, as a homer, he is perfectly set to detail that horrible free-fall from grace to infamy that every person who roots with all their heart for this team is feeling. it's a writer's dream assignment and this article simply fails in every measure. if he were still producing work at the level he was years ago he would have penned something that every bills fan from the fruitless superbowl run in the 90s could read and say "that's exactly how it feels."

instead there is just a package of churlishness and half baked observations that the audibles article here on FO trumps by a degree of magnitude. not to mention the creepy brady fantasy. if the deepest his agony can get is to discard a #81 jersey in a hotel room trashcan and concede "advantage new york" then the shark has been well and truly jumped and is now heading out to open sea.

is it unfair to hold him to such a high standard? not given his previous body of work. and if he's insistant mailing it inand there's nothing to alleviate the more disturbing aspects of his style ... well, i'm a better off avoiding it anyway.

To say the Giants “only won thanks to an amazing fluke catch to keep that last drive alive” is taking it too far

Really? So if Tyree doesn't get catch that ball and the Giants have 4th and 5 still in their own territory with the clock running do you really think the Giants would have come back anyway?

#35: EXACTLY!!! That's why I started reading Simmons to begin with--the fact that as a sports fan I could relate to what he wrote (the Levels Of Losing was pure brilliance). It sure as hell wasn't because I love reality TV or gamble in Vegas every chance I get. I couldn't care less about that stuff.

Then as time went by he started putting more of the superfluous garbage in and then of course became just another obnoxious frontrunner whose only apparent purpose was to rub the Pats' greatness in our faces. As if nobody else was already.

Still, this article is about as good as we're going to get from him. I don't know whether to be happy or sad about that.

#36: Well, they still did have another down. So yes, yes I do :-)

Really? So if Tyree doesn’t get catch that ball and the Giants have 4th and 5 still in their own territory with the clock running do you really think the Giants would have come back anyway?

Maybe, maybe not (although I'm curious how you come to beleive the clock would be running. Most games I've watched, they usually stop the clock.)). You could say that about plenty of plays. Boss's 45 yard catch, Steve Smith on 3rd and 11, Plaxico (obviously), Jacobs on 4th and 1, any of the sacks. They made plenty of plays which hepled to win the game, which is kind of the point.

Some people have strange opinions about luck. If you make a good play you get full credit; if you make a spectacluar play some people completely discount it as "luck". Whatever.

Also, FYI, you may be the only person on God's green earth who thinks the Pats played better teams in the playoffs than the Giants did.

I would not describe Tyree's catch as "fluke". It was good throw and an amazing catch - there was nothing accidental or lucky about it. Tyree went up, caught the ball and managed to bring it down with a defender all over him. There was no lucky bounce or deflection. It was a great feat of skill and concentration. That's how teams win games - players make great plays.

> So if Tyree doesn’t get catch that ball and the Giants have 4th and 5 still in their own territory with the clock running do you really think the Giants would have come back anyway?

Possibly. But mostly I was objecting to your use of the word "only", as if only this one fluky play was decisive in denying the Patriots victory (maybe that wasn't your intent). Likewise if the Patriots had held on to win, I could say that they "only" won because the Giants squandered two easy FG opportunities in the first half, Madison fell down on the Moss TD play, etc. There were several plays you could point to as decisive, as is usually the case in closely contested games.

Simmons isn't supposed to be a homer. He writes for a national media outlet. He's supposed to bring an opinion on sports that are not influenced by him fanboy-ism.

I'm 31 years old, Simmons is a little older than me. I enjoyed my Shawshank, Rocky, Vision Quest and 90210 as much as anybody. But even I think those references are ridiculously outdated.

Next week Simmons will do a detailed analysis of the Manning miracle throw and conclude that he was in fact "in the grasp" thus rendering the catch null & void. Then he'll do a "what-if Tom's ankle was OK?" re-creation of the game that New England will win 55-10, surprisingly enough.

but, from the "credit where credit is due" department i can't fault the man for this effort.

#43: Yup, sounds about right. I'm looking forward to it in fact. Simmons better not disappoint me. Again.

I think 35 summed up my feelings on his writing perfectly.

#40 - great point, awesome distinction.

I like Simmons' column a lot. I can forgive his homerism because the bias is just so freaking obvious. What burns me up is the hidden bias in other columns, where they proclaim non-bias or that accusations of bias are ridiculous. I read something earlier today that was so extreme that way that it made me feel physically disgusted, and I lost a noticeable amount of respect for the author.

44: Thanks for the link, I hadn't seen that.

42: Simmons (who was the Boston Sports Guy before he was the Sports Guy, after all) isn't obliged to eschew fanboy-ism, provided it's good to read. I think the thing that's started to rub people the wrong way about his NFL coverage the last couple of years isn't so much the affirmations of Pats love as the times it spills over into pointless denigration of other franchises or seemingly personal grudges against good players (and, yes, one in particular) on non-Pats teams. That's one aspect of sports fandom that it's probably not good for him to reflect.

Maybe he should take a cue from the FO comments and write a designated Irrational Brady-Manning Column once a year.

#36: "Really? So if Tyree doesn’t get catch that ball and the Giants have 4th and 5 still in their own territory with the clock running do you really think the Giants would have come back anyway?"

Dude. When was the last time you saw an NFL game in which the clock was running after an incompletion?

And very possibly, yeah, the Giants score anyway - if the pass to Tyree falls incomplete the Giants have 4th and 5 on their own 44 with about a minute on the clock and two timeouts remaining. Does that sound like 'game over' to you?

49: Well, if Eli's sacked on that play (which, to my mind, was as lucky as the Tyree catch), it's 4th and a lot more than 5 - and the clock only stops briefly.

That said, although I think that play is "lucky" in the sense that it's virtually non-repeatable, it took amazing skill from both Eli and Tyree to make it work.

Overall, the difference between the Giants and a number of teams in the same situation against the Pats over the years is that, when they pretty much HAD to make the one-in-a-million "lucky" play, they did.

I agree that Bill Simmons is a homer, spends a bit too much time on northeast sports (I'm from RI so I don't really mind), talks about his dad and friends too much, is a bit misogynist, and, as a 35-year old father, is getting a bit creepy is his ogling of 22-year old women (though nothing compared to Easterbrook in that regard who -- at what, 55-years old -- is now a deeply disturbed pervert)...

But Simmons brought up something maybe 2 years ago, and I'm willing to give him a pass on all of that for at least another 5 years...

Out of no-where at the end of one column, he mentioned an incident that had occurred in June 1988, and it went totally unmentioned by ANYONE in the media --- and at the time, it was my equilvalent of seeing a UFO...I thought I was nuts until Simmons, 15 years later, confirmed it...

It was that Game 7 Detroit/Lakers NBA final game, where, with the score 108-105 and a second remaining --- with time to get off a 3-point shot to tie --- cameramen (wires on the court), the Lakers and fans stormed the court as Laimbeer was trying to throw the inbounds pass...The referees do nothing, the announcers (Musburger) say nothing...Everybody acts like nothing happened...It was a travesty...I don't even think the Detroit papers mentioned it...It called into question the integrity of the league...Well Simmons drew attention to it -- and that's how he made a a name for himself -- by saying things that the MSM wouldn't...So I'll continue to give him a pass...

Sorry not to measure up to everyone's standards of precision. By "clock running" I meant time running out, not that the game clock would continue to tick after the incomplete pass. So I gather the consensus here is that the Tyree catch was not a key play after all, since the Giants would have just scored anyway. Interesting perspective.

52: Wow, vanya, what a strawman. No one is saying that the Tyree catch was not a key play, just that attributing the entire win to it was too much hyperbole.
I'm going to change some words in one of your previous statements:
Really? So if [Moss] doesn’t get catch that ball [for the touchdown] and the [Patriots] have 4th and [goal from the 6] with the clock running do you really think the [Patriots] would have come back anyway?
You could point to any one of a handful of key plays and infer that without them, the endgame scenario changes.

#17 writes: "I keep thinking there is someone much more talented from Atlanta or Minneapolis that didnt catch his break."

There is. His name is Joe Posnanski.

It's true that Simmons was lucky to get people's attention when the Pats and Sox were just becoming exceptional teams.

But he's also a bit unlucky that those teams are now SO good that a lot of people are getting sick of his act.

Hard-luck losers and long-suffering underdogs are always good stories. Teams that win all the time generally aren't.

Simmons has become the guy who bought Google at $40 a share. It's great for him but it doesn't make for very interesting reading.

Mikey #54

Just read a few of Posnanski's columns. Good stuff. Definitely earned a bookmark.

C'mon Eddo. It's not that hard to understand. Of course you can point to a dozen plays that could have changed the course of the game. But as time ticks down, the number of possible outcomes becomes ever more restricted - not a difficult concept. Maybe the Giants stopping the Patriots on that 3rd & 1 in the first half really was more significant to the win, but it's hard to tell in hindsight since we can't really imagine how the game would have gone on from that point with a different outcome. I'm fairly confident that if the Giants don't make the 3rd and 5, they don't score. Why is this even a controversial point?

Why is this even a controversial point?

Okay, there are 3 problems here:

1. Post 52 is packed full of lies about what other people said,

2. "it’s hard to tell in hindsight since we can’t really imagine how the game would have gone on from that point with a different outcome" directly contradicts "I’m fairly confident that if the Giants don’t make the 3rd and 5, they don’t score", and

3. By your own criteria at least two plays were more "key" than the Tyree catch - the Jacobs run on 4th and 1, and the Steve Smith catch on 3rd and 11 (which came after the Tyree catch, thus had even more resrticted possible outcomes, and was a harder 4th down to convert).

Also, post 33, apart from containing at least 4 factual errors (the clock wouldn't have been running, the Pats did not play better teams than the Giants in the playoffs, the Giants crushed the Pats in DVOA for the game - it's VOA which was basically even, and the Giants didn't only win because of a fluke play - they won because they did dozens of other things right and played the Pats even, putting themselves in a position to win with one fluke play), doesn't really make sense. If you believe that the Giants wouldn't have won except for the one luck fluke play, doesn't that argue against the Pats choking? According to you the Pats "should" have won. So where's the choke?

56 (vanya):
I’m fairly confident that if the Giants don’t make the 3rd and 5, they don’t score. Why is this even a controversial point?
No one was really disputing that the probably wouldn't score. Sure, some people said "well, they still might have scored," but no one denied it was a key play.
Heck, I don't disagree that that play basically won the Giants the game. However, when you say things like "the Giants [...] only won thanks to an amazing fluke catch to keep that last drive alive," you better believe you'll get a lot of posters arguing with you. Saying your team (at least I think you said you're a Patriots fan) lost due to a fluky play tends to touch people the wrong way.
(For the record, I'm a Bears fan and the Giants and Patriots are two of my least favorite teams.)