'V' for Win

This afternoon in Tampa Bay, the New York Giants notched their first playoff victory since shutting out the Minnesota Vikings 41-0 in the NFC Championship Game!

(That would, of course, be the 2001 NFC Championship Game, which was shortly followed by Super Bowl XXXV, in which the Giants fell a mere four touchdowns short of beating the Baltimore Ravens.)

(That laughing you hear in the background is Ms N, who happens to be a fan of the Baltimore Ravens.)

Today’s final score: Giants 24, Buccaneers 14. In the immortal words of Daffy Duck: "Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo-hoo! Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo!!"

Football is all about strategy, and the Giants employed an ingenious one, indeed. They upended the Buccaneers by reversing their regular game plan. Unlike most games, the G-Men began the game playing with ineptitude - ceding a 7 point lead to the pewter pirates - before letting everything inexplicably fall together. Three touchdowns and a field goal later, Big Blue hushed the hometown crowd. A late TD brought the swashbucklers within 10, but avast, the scurvy bilge rats found themselves cast o'erboard into the dark depths o' Davy Jones' locker.

(Special thanks to the folks at talklikeapirate.com for providing the vocab help.)

Now the Giants are goin' down to Big D, and I do mean Dallas. (All the country music fans in my audience will get that one.) The re-rematch is set!

This is where some of the jubilation turns to trepidation. The Cowpokes beat the visiting Giants in the season-opener, and then beat the Giants again almost three months later in the Jersey Meadowlands. That doesn't bode well for the boys in blue. But I have faith, hope, and, most importantly, an abundance of denial. So as I rest my head on whatever pillow Ms N decides not to hoard tonight, I have a happy thought.

It doesn't matter what happens in the first two games, so long as you win the third.