Perfect

I'm a posting madman this month, huh?

Last night I attended the Patriots/Giants game at Giants Stadium. A great big thanks to Mike Walker for brilliantly getting reasonably priced tickets on ebay on Christmas day while everyone else was opening presents, and then inviting me.

In case you live under a rock, the Patriots won 38-35 to finish the regular season undefeated at 16-0. This is the fourth time in NFL history a team has finished the regular season unbeaten and untied - two of those teams (both Chicago Bears teams in the late 30's/early 40's) lost the championship game. So they're chasing the 1972 Miami Dolphins for the second perfect season ever, if they can win the Super Bowl.

The game last night was fantastic - very well played and exciting. Taking into consideration the fact that the Pats were locked into the #1 AFC seed and the Giants were locked into the #5 NFC seed going into the game, this was beyond most people's expectations. It could very well have been a case of the Giants playing all their backups, the Pats running up a 21-0 lead and then putting in their backups. So give credit to the Giants for coming out and playing hard and very well, they made the Pats earn it.

The Pats broke the single season scoring record early in the 2nd quarter, when they went ahead 10-7. By the 3rd quarter, they were down 28-16 - the biggest deficit of the season - and there was a lot of time left but it was getting close to nail-biting territory. That's the great thing about rooting for Tom Brady and the Patriots, though... I didn't have to worry quite yet. Anyways, the one single play I'll remember from this game longer than any other came with 11:06 left in the game. Mike and I were sitting in section 302, up in the borderline nosebleeds but you could see fine, and we were looking straight through one end zone, which was a cool perspective. Tom Brady tossed up a pass for Randy Moss, who was seemingly streaking right at us - he caught it in stride for a 65-yard touchdown. On that one play, Brady broke the single season passing TD record, Moss broke the single season receiving TD record, and it put the Pats ahead to stay in an exciting game that capped off a 16-0 season. For good measure, they also broke their own regular season winning streak (19 games going back to last season).

Mike posed the question to me of where this game ranked in all of the sporting events I've ever been to in person. I ruled out the Celtics because they lost the only game I remember going to, and the Bruins because I've never been to a game nearly this good. I've been to some really good Red Sox games, some that might match this one in terms of excitement, but not in terms of actual significance. I think this game is on a short list of "great" games I've been to, along with:

- Colgate football making a 4th quarter comeback in a near blizzard to beat Western Illinois 28-27 in the Div I-AA quarterfinals on their way to the championship game, December 2003.
- Colgate hockey upsetting #4 Cornell, 2-1 in overtime, January 2003.

By the way, those chocolate chip cookies they were still selling after the game? Scrumtrillescent.