As most of you know, the New York Giants and the New England Patriots will be heading to this year’s Super Bowl. I have a confession to make: I couldn’t be too much less interested in NFL football than I am, at least when it comes to keeping up with who’s who and what teams are moving/stagnating. Sadly, I’m not alone.
Each year our nation is faced with a tragedy of epic proportions: Super Bowl viewers with no team to root for. Watching a football game without having someone to swear at or root for is like watching a women’s soccer game that your girl friend invited you out to; you try to act entertained by two teams that you’ve never heard of before and pray that you’ll get lucky that night, except during the Super Bowl replace ‘girl friend’ with ‘everyone else in the nation’ and ‘get lucky’ with ‘won’t look like an idiot the next day at the office in front of all the NFL fans’.
So here is my simple solution: see if Tom O’Brien or Chuck have any reps on the Giants and/or Patriots and give them preference. As good NC State fans, we all know that a game would be complete without as anger and spite, so we’ll also look at who has the most UNC fans and deduct that from who we root for. Former ECU players will be noted, but much like in actual college athletics, won’t be factored into any decision making.
GIANTS 0 – PATRIOTS 0
All things starting out even, we see NO former NC State players on either team. I would insert a clever quip about Tom O’Brien’s athletes, but I’m still patting myself on the back for that ECU jab.
That being said, the Giants do have 4 former Tom O’Brien players (Chris Snee, G; Mark Herzlich, LB; Mathias Kiwanuka, LB; and Will Blackmon, CB) so we’ll give the Giants half a point for each.
GIANTS 2 – PATRIOTS 0
Counting against them they have Hakeem Nicks, WR, who provided $3,300 in improper benefits to players once leaving for the NFL. The New York Giants are also hosting the infamous Anchorman Austin, himself! For each of these players’ affiliation with ‘the sinking flagship’, that will cost them a point each. Fortunately for the Giants, I think we have to give them a little credit for helping to do more damage to UNC than we ever could have dreamed of doing, so we’ll recoup them half a point each for their meritorious actions.
The Giants also have a guy from ECU but, as I mentioned before, no one cares. No point deduction.
GIANTS 1 – PATRIOTS 0
The Patriots are also lacking in NC State talent which, again, is probably deserving of some kind of smart-alik response. They also contain a couple former O’Brien players in Dan Koppen, G, and Ron Brace, DE. Again, half a point each.
GIANTS 1 – PATRIOTS 1
Since we’re struggling for tie-breakers, we should also throw in there at the Patriots have a player recruited by Butch Davis. Vince Wilfork is a decent enough person and a talented player, but he was recruited by Butch Davis to go to Miami right before Davis headed off to the Cleveland Browns. We’ll take half a point for that from the Pats.
GIANTS 1 – PATRIOTS 0.5
It looks like as an NC State fan, I have to go with the Giants. Yeah, that means I’ll be rooting for a couple Tar Heels, but they are Tar Heels that did an effective job of running off a $2 million/year investment from the Rams Club and stabbed the UNC football program in the back right when Tom O’Brien is starting to get something going in Raleigh. I’m not sure how much I can hate on someone who is capable of so much destruction at UNC. The Giants also have several of Tom O’Brien’s players which seems to bring up then old adage ‘any friend of Tom’s is a friend of mine.’
I’m sure there will be a lot of discussion here and on our message boards about who everyone wants to root for, but for this Wolfpacker all I have to say is ‘Go Giants!’
