BLOG: I'm An Eagles Fan, And I'm Cheering For The Giants In The Super Bowl
by Spike Eskin
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- "A peacefulness follows any decision, even the wrong one." - Rita Mae Brown
As an Eagles fan, NFL Championship Weekend ended pretty much as poorly as we could have imagined. The only thing worse would have been the NFL changing the rules, and somehow allowing the Cowboys to play the Giants in the Super Bowl. A great day of football ended with a stake through my heart. Two of them, in fact.
We were left with the Giants and the Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI. It kind of makes me sick to my stomach to type. King Solomon would have been without words when presented with this kind of a choice.
It left me, as an Eagles fan, with a question that I know many people in the area are also facing; who should I root for?
I've heard a lot of folks saying they're not even going to watch. I don't believe it. I don't care who's in the Super Bowl, it's the last football game of the year and I'm watching it. I've got to wait six months to see another game, so I'm not cheating myself.
I've also seen some nonsense that goes something like, "I'm just watching for the commercials." For one, the commercials haven't been good in about ten years. As well, I can't watch a game and not root for someone. If I'm up late watching the Utah Jazz vs. the Memphis Grizzlies, I'll find a way to root for someone (just FYI it'd be Memphis because of former Sixer Marreese Speights).
I've thought long and hard about it, and I'm doing something I may one day regret. In the ultimate match the of lesser of two evils, in this case, the lesser of the of the two most evils. I'm going to cheer for the New York Giants on February 5th. May the football gods have mercy on my soul.
I know they're a division rival. I know it's New York. I know it all, and I hate them just like you. But there is some reasoning behind this all. Here's why:
Giants fans are going to be incorrigible no matter what. It doesn't matter if they win this game or don't win this game, they're always going to scream at us about their rings from decades ago. Does it really sound any different if they say how many rings it is? Think about what it sounds like when Yankees fans do that. It all kind of sounds the same.
Giants fans didn't really expect to be here, and won't be crushed if they lose. If the Patriots go in and win it 53-3, Giants fans will still tell us "nice Dream Team, how'd you guys do in the playoffs?" And they'll be right. One of the ways I'm going to feel better about all of this is if I see a group of fans more crushed than I am.
Patriots fans, Boston fans in general are the worst. 100% worse than any other fan on the planet. They're smug, they're arrogant, and they're every other word you can find in the thesaurus that means the same thing. They expect to win, which makes winning a lot less fun. A loss to the Giants in this Super Bowl would obliterate them. It would leave them crying in their beer, still unable to pronounce words like "Harvard," "yard," "car," and "Nomar." They need revenge from their loss to the Giants four years ago, and I don't want them to have it.
Bill Belichick and that hoodie, and Tom Brady and his Uggs, will bother me more than Tom Coughlin's red face and Eli Manning's "deer in the headlights" glare ever will.
There are also NFC pride, NFC East pride, and the "we beat the Giants this year so we can still hold out hope for next year" bits. I don't wholeheartedly buy into these, but it's something, and it's more than I can say about the Patriots.
This was not an easy decision, and I'm not particularly proud of it. But this my friends, is the Super Bowl. It's football, and no one said it would be easy.
So, who 'ya got? Let me know in the comments.
