Closer than expected?

The New York Giants… a 13-point underdog heading into the Super Bowl. The Giants have had a remarkable run in the playoffs, beating Philadelphia, Dallas and Green Bay. Do you have fluke? I do not think.

Eli Manning has been explosive in the playoffs. Eli is playing like a new QB, and not like the one people are used to seeing during the regular season. That’s easy to say when he beat the likes of Jeff Garcia, Tony Romo and Brett Farve all in 3 weeks.

Eli’s stats aren’t bad either. Between the 38-35 loss to the Patriots and the three playoff games, Eli completed 64% of his passes, averaging 213 yards per game, and threw 8 TDs and just 1 interception. Plus, Eli will have his top three receivers in the game on Sunday: Burress, Toomer and Smith.

Needless to say, the Giants are hot right now.

On the other hand, the Patriots are cooling off.

Randy Moss hasn’t been playing like he used to during the regular season.

No one can promise Tom Brady’s foot will be ready on time, and if he does, no one can promise he’ll play the entire game, unless he wants something similar to Curt Schilling’s bloody sock from the 2004 World Series.

Overall, the Pats haven’t been scoring like they were earlier in the season. During the first 7 weeks, the Pats averaged almost 40 points per game. From week 9 to the conference championship, they only reached 30+ points 5 times.

I don’t know what anyone else thinks (although they probably think I’m wrong and just plain crazy), but the Pats are calming down.

Some say, though, that the extra bye week will cool down the Giants and give Brady more time to recover. That would be true, to my great disappointment, but I still prefer to choose the team that is in fashion than the team that is not.

In a nutshell… GO GIANTS!