Football Function
Team of Destiny: 1990 New York Giants
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With no upfront fees, Renters Warehouse works for you, not the other way around. From marketing and showing your property, to screening tenants and preparing the lease, their team of experts handles it all so you can sit back and watch the rent roll in. Renters Warehouse even warranties their tenants for up to 18 months at no extra cost. And if you need ongoing management, they've got you covered too, all for a flat monthly fee. Visit Renters Warehouse dot com to request a free rental price analysis. That's renterswearhouse.com or call 303-974-9444 to speak to a Rent-A-State advisor today. What's going on everybody? Guys and girls, welcome back to another edition of the football function podcast available on all your podcasting platforms including on Patreon. If you prefer and add free listening experience, as always, I am one of the hosts of the show Michael Ritter. You can find me on X at Michael5 Ritter on Instagram at Michael Ritter 5 and also the host of the SmackDown review over on the WWE podcast. Joining me on today's episode, my humble co-host student of the game, your parents, Minifil Terry. How are we doing? I'm doing great big dog. Funkeys. How the hell are you guys? I hope you guys are doing well. Thank you for tuning in with us here at the football function. We got a TOD episode for you. I'm excited to jump into it with my humble host here, Michael Ritter. TOD stands for team of destinies. This is a series that we have currently done 24 iterations of, give or take. Sometimes we put multiple seasons into one episode, so it's a little bit more jam-packed, I guess, because we fit in four Super Bowls into one episode. We kind of just got on that type of schedule back in 2022 because that's the spoiler here is, we haven't done a team of Destiny episodes since July 13th, 2022. So nearly two years ago, roughly 23 months ago, if you will, give or take. But you know, it's really a summer series. It's something that you really, you know, there's no reason to get into it. Let you know you're truly in the off season. Yeah, there's no reason to get into it during the regular season or in the beginning stages of the off season because there's so many other things to cover, so many other things to talk about. More important things. So it does feel like it's the perfect time for us to get back into it. And you know, we're starting with a great decade, the 1990s here. Super Bowl 25, which-- Oh, great number. Really quickly. Yes, phenomenal number. Yes, sir. I know it holds a special place in your heart. It will always. But this is also one of the reminders that, you know, they used to really make Super Bowl logos look good. Yeah. Super Bowl 25 has a nice, memorable logo. The game itself, you know, we'll get into, obviously, and you know, the proceedings leading up to the Super Bowl on both sides, you know, the NFC and the AFC. So I am looking forward to that because I expect, you know, these team of Destin, the episodes to be a little bit different than two years ago because, you know, we're not the same podcasters that we were two years ago. Hopefully-- And I didn't go listen to any of them. Yeah, I definitely didn't. Don't remember how exactly we did it. Me neither. But I went back and looked just to find out when the last time it was that we did one of these bad boys. And that's whenever I realized, "Holy hell, how were we fitting four into one episode?" I mean, we were about it back then. Wild times. But nonetheless, we're going to switch it up a little bit, probably. Yeah. And, you know, just focus a little bit harder on one specific team per episode. I love that, man. Because we are getting a little bit closer to our era. Now, we're not there just yet. I personally wasn't born in 1990. So I can't say that, you know, I remember the 1990 New York Giants. But we're going to get into it. We're going to learn about them. And that's the whole point of this process, the whole point of this series. So hopefully you will enjoy it as we dive back in here fully to the team of Destin series. Man, I am excited for this. But yeah, I hope you're trying to segue to what I am going to segue it up to. I want to talk about game one before we need to talk anything about football. How is your, how do you feel after this over time when, I guess, a patient, are you kind of, I guess, I wanted to ask you before, are you more scared of the Knicks or the Pacers? I was going to answer the Pacers because of the running gun style that they have. And number one offense, or scoring offense in the league, I believe that they were the team that scared Celtics the most. And I think that they could hang with them. And it showed. I think Halliburton is putting on a fucking show of a lifetime. And he's going to continue for game two. I think game two is going to explain and probably tell the rest of the story. This game is probably the most important game, obviously, in this whole series. Yeah, if you look back at the last two game to use that the Celtics lost, or just the last two playoff rounds, both against the Miami Heat, and then against the Cleveland Cavaliers, game two was the game that they lost at home. It looked like that could have possibly happened in, you know, game one against Indiana. You know, you asked what team was I, you know, I'm more scared of what's team would I like to not see in the conference finals? And if you would have asked me a week ago, I would have said the New York Knicks. And it's almost foolish of me, now that I've, you know, gotten a little bit more familiar with the Pacers. And I've gotten to see this match up up close and personal now through that first game, which was, you know, pretty crazy. How do I feel about it? Obviously, there was the massive, you know, free throw difference where we took a lot they didn't. And I will say before people just start, you know, poo poo and on the rest, the Celtics are the number two defense in the league. The Pacers are the number 13. Mathematically, you just expect the number 13 defense to foul a lot more. And that's just pretty much what happened. I mean, Nie Smith having to go up against Jason Tatum having to go up against Jalen Brown for the whole duration of that game. He did not have a great game. He had a, I mean, he was doing well in terms of limiting Jason Tatum, especially early in the matchup. I mean, he was making his presence felt turnovers after turnovers. From the defensive side, turnovers, absolutely. And then like I said, he fouled out because his defense was too physical. And you know, you can get them in foul trouble. And I just think the Celtics just naturally being a better defensive team. They're going to foul a little bit less. So that just kind of, I put that away for a little bit, like whatever, you know, I'm, I expect the foul or the free throws to be a little bit more balanced for the, you know, the remainder of the series. But in game one, you mentioned it number one scoring offense and they score 128. And you walk away with a win. You have to feel good about that. I feel like this was a win that the Pacers needed because, you know, I probably was going to lean more Celtics in six thinking they get to game one, having the feeling of a game that, okay, they just came out, shot the lights out after doing the exact same thing in game seven, just a couple days before the momentum. So they did. Yeah, they carried over that heat into the end of the game one. And you know, obviously, the Celtics had to match it. They had to keep going. They built 10, 12-point leads, probably like three or four times in this game, especially to start the game off 12-0. I thought it was over. And that just shows you the type of team that the Pacers are and the fact that they are going to just bring it from like an offensive perspective, obviously. At home, especially in a way, it seems like they're not going to give up at one second. But the thing is, is they did go to seven with the Knicks. They've been tested in every round so far. And I do expect there to be a couple games in this series that don't go like game one where they stink. And maybe the Celtics can blow one. I'm totally going to account for that. That's kind of why I said Celtics in six is because I expected there. Yeah, exactly. I expected there to be one game where the Pacers just shot lights out, which could have been game one. And they just will happen to blow it there at the end. So I expected the Celtics to lose one kind of like they've lost game twos in both of the other series. And then I expected the Celtics to kind of just or I guess the elite shooting to get the Pacers one win, the Celtics to blow one to give them another win. And then the Celtics just pretty much do their thing and get four wins because they are the better team. And I felt like there were multiple points in game one where it was evident that the Celtics were the better team. It's just man, you have to watch out because this team will shoot the lights out when you think of the buzzer beaters that were going on. Off the backboard twice, Halbert and obviously crazy good. And he was also doing things from the defensive side, which I really didn't expect. He's got great hands, but I surprisingly feel good going into these next games just because, you know, obviously Christophe's resilience is coming back. And I think if he could if he were healthy in this series, it would be a sweep. I really think that I really think that it would be a sweep. And that's tough to say. I'm a piece of a player. He he he damn well is. I just think that with what the Celtics can do offensively, it's already pretty much just what do you want to do? They were driving like a hot knife do butter through that defense getting to the rim. There was like three of them that scored over 24 points talking about holiday Jalen Brown with the big three points shot to tie it up. And then once I went to overtime, Jason Tatum just doing his thing partially because Neese Smith had already fell out. So I am excited for game two tomorrow night. We should be man. We will not be able to watch it alive because there's some other playoff action that's going to be going on. Moving on from two scoops of hoops. There will be talk a little bit about some volleyball here. Little Volley talk. We somehow snuck into the play. They don't fucked up and let us in the playoffs. I don't really know how we got in. But I will say we're the four seed dog. There's been some game so four seed only four teams make it only four teams make it. Okay, I feel good. I don't know why. I feel great. You know exactly why you feel good dog. Don't try to hide it. I feel like there were several instances this season where we showed flashes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's one game in particular that's coming to my mind where we showed. Are you familiar with the team that we have to play? Yes, they're the team. The one dude they're called they're called mexilence. Mexilence. Yes, they're the team that we played last week, the first team that we played last week. The one dude that dinks it over. Oh my gosh. They're number one. They're the number one seed. Fucking number one seed. Yes. All right. Remember our whole to our listeners. You were a whole fundamental conversation we had just like the last time we talked about volleyball how there is a way to play that spike. Well, and then we talked about how there's another way to play, which is the wrong way, which is just bouncing the ball back over and giving them just a free hit. That is what this team bases their philosophy. That's their whole offense. That's what they do. Yeah. That's exactly the reason why we don't deny like this team and beat them in both sets. I can't I can't as the four seed beating the one seed. I truly think that. Yeah, there's no, this is ours to lose, man. I don't expect this to lose. And we're going to be short-handed a couple people. So typically the girls that are on our team, they have to rotate more than the guys because there's like two spots or whatever. If everybody shows up typically, at least one person's gone. But for the guys, we also have to sit out one spot in the rotation because there's four of us and only three get to be on the court. But now, not today. Caleb Grant, Terry, and myself, we all three get to be on the court for the whole time. Let's go. And I think, you know, just being completely objective here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Taking the biased out. For sure. I think that there's no reason why we shouldn't just absolutely take our game to the next level. Brother, brother. There's no reason for us to lose a set. Especially not in that first match. Like if we lose to those guys, I will be very upset. Brother, I will too. But I think that, you know, with Emma's intensity that she's been bringing the determination to win, which we all need to talk about last week. Yeah, we had, we had a nice little pow wow. Imagine, imagine that 24/7. Okay. Okay. So we're, we're there any, okay, were there any, you know, personal, Oh, there's always, there always is throughout the week. Because this was a big week, you know, yeah, yeah, there's, um, you know, ever since I had her ankle a little bit tweaked it up, I've told her I've been, I've been revving about how excited I've been about the playoffs tomorrow. And you know, she's just been giving me the stern answers like, all right, you're healthy, you'll be in the whole game. We better, we better have a score that looks like you've been in the whole game. I'm like, yeah, you already know, baby, that shit. Are you playing no games? The only thing I wait, I am scared about, we got a time where it's better. The only thing I am scared about is getting our team call disqualified. That is the only thing you will. It's the only thing, Funky's, I did get a little warning last week. It was kind of bullshit. If you had a little Hulk Hogan on the ball, for one hit, brother, I got, I, Funky's, I got the fucking, I mean, whenever we're on a eight, oh, whenever the other team is on an eight, oh, run, and we got to do something to switch to momentum. Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna wind up, I'm gonna be pissed off, knock the piss out of the ball. I got good connection on it. And I smack the ever living shit out of it. And it hit a girl. Yeah, that was the big kicker. This is a coed league. You don't want that to happen. Definitely not, but don't fuck around and find out. You're not aiming for girls. Don't fuck around and find out. That's what they did. But if you ain't ready to dig, you better get on down the line because, pack extra shovels when you come around and mean, well, yeah, we're just, you know, bump it. Just get that sucker up. That's really all I'm looking for. Hey, and nobody's ever, I mean, we're the only ones talking about it, but that bitch got me too. She spiked one and got me. Okay, let's not forget about that. She spiked one and got me, and it got me in the shoulder. So there was a little payback in that little film right there too. So nothing better than a verbal warning from the ref in the game. So embarrassing. Why the liner? Take it down a couple notches. No fucking do that. Hey, just call me the side. I'll fucking go over to you. Yeah, we call it timeout. So I'm like that. You can do an official timeout. You know, bring him, bring him over there and do it in front of everyone. Lean down, say that, you know, then let there be the mystery. What the hell the ref just say? Exactly. Don't call him out. You don't need to make him out to adjust the way he plays and all that stuff. Yeah, and that kind of was. And the funny thing is the way the bracket set up, if we win, and that's the team, they're in the other side of the bracket. The asset kickers, that's the team that, you know, I got in trouble with. We can smash that team. Hey, the fucking champion. They've like one game. They have like one good player. They really have that one dude to do that Caleb had to go. Yeah, yeah. They have that guy. That's the only one. And then they have that other other chickens. All right, the one that I pegged you better hope that he can bring his A game again, because he, you know, he's going to get the new team this week. He's going against the team that they should not have let in the playoffs. They don't fuck them around and let us in the playoffs. Well, four seed come at it. Well, we're ready for the shit. So what are we at count wise with the time? Time we are at a smooth 15 minutes. Nice 15 minute open here as we get into this return of the team of Destiny series. So we'll fill you guys in on how the volleyball stuff went obviously next week whenever we talk or whenever it is that we talk to you guys. For sure. We'll let you know how that stuff went. But for now, I got championship coming out of the lake. Let's just get the championship vibes going right now then. That's probably because given the fact that 24 hours from now, it's nine o'clock exactly right now. 24 hours from now, our game is scheduled to be ending. Yes, sir. The championship, which it could be the championship if we win. Yeah, we should be. I'm already planning on playing two games because I said we're not going to be able to watch ourselves this game live. So I already kind of got myself prepared. Yeah, we're winning that first round match up. You got them right. We're already throwing the parade. We got everybody celebrating already. That's funny though, because in television, there's a thing called an optical flip, which is pretty much just what happens whenever somebody's saying there's no way in hell I'm going to do that. Absolutely not. I will not do that in the camera flips and they're doing exactly what they just said they weren't going to be doing. I hope that there's not an optical flip of next week us saying, hey, you know, there ain't no way in hell we're going to lose in that first round and then optical flip. So unfortunately, we got our asses kicked down. Don't be surprised that that does happen. But let's hope that's not the case. 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Your family will stay connected to the world even when you are on the move. Experience Buick Enclave today. At Shortline Buick, 1301 South Havana Street. You do the drive-in. We'll do the rest. We're here to talk about a very special, very monumental, sorry, Super Bowl Super Bowl 25, obviously the 25th anniversary of the biggest game of all time. The best championship in sports. And like I said, this logo looks phenomenal. I'll post it on the Instagram whenever we post the, you know, the reminder lay. Team of Destiny is back. Big time episode here. Shout out to all of our New York Giants fans out there because, you know, this is a pretty important Super Bowl, your second Super Bowl that you ever won. But this one was just super, super special. Damn right. If you, if you will, you know, they won by one point, obviously, but we'll get into it. You know, that's a kind of getting way ahead of ourself here. Super Bowl 25 was an American football game between the AFC champion Buffalo Bills and the NFC champion at New York Giants to decide the NFL champion for the 1990 season. The Giants defeated the Bills by a score of 20 to 19, winning their second Super Bowl championship. This game took place January 27th, 1991 in Tampa, Florida at Tampa Stadium. The MVP of the game was Otis Anderson, a running back. The favorite, I guess, just going into the game was the Buffalo Bills by seven. So, this was an upset victory. Damn right. And in 1991, this game sat 73,813 people. Not bad, not bad. The national anthem was sung by Whitney Houston. Let's go. Pete Rosel did the coin toss, the halftime show was new kids on the block. The network that it played on was ABC, Al Michaels, Frank Gifford, Dan Geertoff, Lynn Swan, Jackaroo, amongst many others that were announcing and broadcasting on this game, $800,000 for a 30 second commercial just to get your, you know, your brand on television for 30 seconds, $800,000. Hey, I want to be honest, that's only going to shoot up as we continue to go through this series and we get further on down the line in the 90s and the 2000s series trying to talk to us here. I want to go ahead and stop that before it gets any worse. Damn new series. What's going on? Close out of that. All right. You're going back off. I'm sorry. It's a male. I know that it says Siri, but that's a male voice. I'm going to change that. 2024, man, whatever you like. Anyways, the game was held at Tampa Stadium in Tampa, Florida on January 27, 1991 and was the last time a Super Bowl would be held at Tampa Stadium. The bills and their explosive no-huddle offense were making their first Super Bowl appearance after finishing the regular season with a 13 and three record and leading the league in total points scored with 428 in advancing to their second Super Bowl. The Giants also posted a 13 and three record, but with a ball control offense and a defense that allowed a league low 211 points, Super Bowl 25 became the first Super Bowl to feature two teams representing the same state, even though the Giants technically play in New Jersey. The game is known for bills, plays kicker, Scott Norwood's last second missed field goal attempt that went wide right of the uprights, starting a four-game losing streak in the Super Bowl for the Bills. This game became the first and so far the only Super Bowl that was decided by one point and the first Super Bowl in which neither team committed a turnover. The Giants set a Super Bowl record in holding possession, talking about TOP, you know, time of possession, 40 minutes and 33 seconds of a football game, a 60 minute game, insane. The Giants also overcame a 12 to 3 second quarter deficit and made a 75 yard touchdown drive that consumed a Super Bowl record nine minutes and 29 seconds off the clock. Giants running back Otis Anderson who carried the ball 21 times for 102 yards and one touchdown was named Super Bowl MVP. He was the first awardee to receive the newly named Pete Rosel trophy named as a former NFL commissioner Pete Rosel obviously. Anderson also recorded one reception for seven yards, the NFL and its 100 greatest game series ranked this game as number 10 all time. Obviously that was, you know, released a long time ago but clearly this was often talked about as one of the greatest Super Bowls of all time and I totally agree if you look at how it ended, the story behind all of this stuff. Just ultimately I think that this was a really good, a really good Super Bowl to start off the 90s but also be that monumental historic number 25. The 1990 New York Giants were built to head coach Bill Parcel's specifications of quote unquote "power football", a strong defense and an offense meant to sustain extremely long drives. The Giants defense ranked second in the league and fewest total yards allowed with 4,392 and first and fewest points allowed and boasted three pro Bowl selections, defense attack will Eric Howard and linebackers Pepper Johnson and Lawrence Taylor, Lawrence Taylor had 10 and a half sacks and one interception that season. The linebacker Gary Reesens was also a strong force with three interceptions and three fumble recoveries. The secondary was led by defensive back Everson Walls and an offseason acquisition of a former Dallas Cowboy who recorded six interceptions, safety Greg Jackson who recorded five interceptions and four sacks. The Giants offense was unspectacular, ranking just 17th in the league and yards gain and 13th and points scored. Despite that they were down or they wore down opposing teams with extremely long drives thus keeping their opponents offense on the sidelines and preventing them from scoring. More importantly, the Giants set an NFL record by losing only 14 turnovers in a 16 game regular season. A big reason for the team's offensive success was the blocking of Lyman Barr Oates and William Roberts, the only pro bowlers on the offense. Otis Anderson was the team's leading Russia with 784 yards and 11 touchdowns while also catching 18 passes for 139 yards. Kick returner Dave Mega led the NFL in part return yards with 467 while also gaining 500 kick return yards and rushing for 164 yards catching 39 passes for 410. So just to do it all type of player, you know, we can get you return yards. He's just an all-purpose weapon that can be utilized multiple different ways. New York began the regular season by winning their first 10 games and then went into a little bit of a tail spin, lost three out of their next four, one week after losing to a division rival Philadelphia Eagles 31 to 13, the 10 and one Giants met defeat on Monday night football and a seven to three defensive battle with the 10 and one San Francisco 49ers who had won the previous two Super Bowls and ultimately finished the regular season with an NFL best 14 and two record. Then in their 17 to 13 lost to the Bills, New York suffered a setback when starting quarterback Phil Sims who had already thrown for 2,284 yards and 15 touchdowns with only four interceptions during the year. Went down for the season with a broken bone in his foot. This is Carson Wentz all over again, losing, you know, with the Eagles lost, had to replace him with Mick Foles. You know, a lot of things kind of happened here, but this was a phenomenal team that the New York Giants had and it was really the scheme. Obviously, we talked about it. They were such a run heavy offense, just trying to wear teams down, something that teams are still trying to copy to this day. It's a winning formula of football and I think that that reason and that reason alone is why Sims replacement Jeff Hostetler who had started only two games in the seven years as a backup with the Giants was able to come in and pretty much, you know, lead this team to the promise land and that's something that up until that point really you didn't ever see done. But however, Hostetler displayed polished passing and scrambling ability in his limited playing time during those, you know, during the season and those seven starts and anything that he's ever had to do in the NFL and he really only threw one interception and committed no fumbles. So this is someone that took care of the ball. When I'm talking about a game manager, he wrote the book perfect backup quarterback with Hostetler at the helm. The Giants responded by winning their final two games to finish the regular season 13 and three. Good enough to win the NFC East and earn the second seed in the NFC playoffs. Let's go. Now you go to the other side of the coin. The Buffalo Bills. The Bills had a very talented team with nine Pro Bowl selections on their roster. Their defense was led by defensive in Bruce Smith, who had 19 sacks in a run heavy league. You know, it wasn't the past happy league that it is today. You can imagine you probably would have got 30 if you got the reps, the pass rush reps that the players are getting nowadays. But to go along with the 19 sacks, he also forced four fumbles and he won the NFL defense of player of the year award. Behind him, three of the Bills starting linebackers, Darryl Talley, Shane Comlin and Cornelius Bennett were all selected to the Pro Bowl. Defensive back Kirby Jackson led the team in interceptions with three. On special teams, Pro Bowlers Steve Tasker was a dominant threat, forcing fumbles, delivering jarring tackles, and also blocking kicks. Despite their good defense, it was the Bills flashy high-powered offense that gained the most attention. Unlike the Giants, the Bills routinely used a no huddle tactic to storm down the field and score points very quickly. Instead of going into a huddle after each play, quarterback Jim Kelley would immediately send his offense back to the line of scrimmage and make the call there after reading the defense. This strategy prevented opposing defenses from reading the Bills formation correctly, making substitutions, or even catching their breath. The Bills no huddle K gun offense worked well enough for Kelley to finish the regular season as the top-rated quarterback in the NFL with a 101.2 rating, throwing for 2,829 yards, 24 touchdowns, and only 9 interceptions. One reason for success was that he had two outstanding wide receivers, future Hall of Famer Andre Reed, who made his specialty growing across the middle on slants and crossing routes. He also recorded 71 catches for 945 yards and eight touchdowns that season. And then future Hall of Famer James Lofton, who was the big threat with 35 catches for 712 yards, pretty much 20.3 yards per catch average, and then tied in Keith McKellar contributed 34 catches for 464 yards and five touchdowns. Pro Bowl running back Thurman Thomas had an AFC best 1297 yards, caught 49 passes for 532 yards, and scored 13 all-purpose touchdowns. Thomas led the NFL and yards from scrimmage for the second consecutive season. A key to the Bills prolific offense was the blocking of its superb offensive line, led by All Pro Center Kent Hull, and Pro Bowl left tackle Will Wolford. Even though Kelley missed the last two games of the season with a knee injury suffered in the same game with the Giants lost Sims, a Super Bowl preview where both starting quarterbacks got injured, the Bills finished with a 13-3 regular season. So really quickly, let's talk about that. Before we were recorded, we kind of were joking around a little bit that the Giants, you know, anytime they make the Super Bowl, they shine. You know, they're like Michael Jordan damn near, and obviously they don't have that perfect record in the Super Bowl. They beat some on it in. Some bitches. So who lost? Who have the Giants lost to in the Super Bowl? I can't look it up right now because obviously I'm preoccupied. But if you look that up, I'll make my point that I'm going to be making here, which is pretty much, we all remember, you were just hinting at it. The Giants lost to the Patriots in the 2007 season finale in which ended up being a Super Bowl preview for the Super Bowl 42 matchup in Arizona, Patriots versus the Giants. The Giants sneak in as a wildcard team, win road game after road game, eventually go take on the undefeated New England Patriots and win the Super Bowl. They lost against the Baltimore Ravens. Hey man, how could I not play? 2001. Kerry Collins as the quarterback. Yeah, I should definitely have remembered that. But nonetheless, you talk about Super Bowl 25, which is very similar to the Super Bowl 42 reference I was just making about them having that Super Bowl preview that they lost and ended up riding that wrong. They got an opportunity to do that. And this one was a very critical game because in this Bill's game, that's whenever they lost Phil Simms. So like, damn, this is the team that took out our starting quarterback. We're meeting them in the Super Bowl. They're a very high powered, very electric offense. We're an offense that's built completely different. It's a winding grind, which formula is going to come out on top. And then you factor in that this is the first Super Bowl where it's featuring two teams that reside in the same state. Yeah, I'd never put that together. Some juicy storylines here, man. Like, you know, you and your neighbor might be on the complete other side of the fence, literally and figuratively here being two separate fan bases, but in the same state. So we talked about these two teams in the regular season. We talked about how electric they were in their own right, how dominant they were in their own right, both having 13 and three records. Let's talk about the playoffs playoffs. The Giants began their championship postseason run by a trivial elimination of the Chicago Bears 31 to three in leading the Giants quote unquote powerful ball offense. Hostetler through only 17 passes, but two in for touchdowns, any through no interceptions. He also directed a rushing attack that gained 194 yards, including 43 and a touchdown from Hostetler himself. This game offered a preview of, you know, what lay in store for the Super Bowl 25 champion New York Giants because the Giants scored on drives of 75, 80, 49, and 51 yards or yards, sorry, which lasted 9, 11, 11, 16 plays respectively. Overall, New York held the ball for 38 minutes and 22 seconds compared to Chicago's 21 minutes and 38 seconds. However, New York lost another key player for the season when rookie running back Rodney Hampton, the team's second leading rusher during the regular season with 455 yards, suffered a broken leg. One week later, the very following Sunday, the Giants upset the San Francisco 49ers 15 to 13 in the NFC championship game. The 49ers and the NFL best 14 and two regular season winners of the last two Super Bowls were eight point favorites at kickoff. Their outstanding defense was led by future Hall of Fame defensive back Ronnie Law and linebacker Charles Haley, who led the NFC in sacks. We talk about Bruce Smith with 19 defense player of the year. So not only did the Giants have to go through him, they also had to go through the other guy, which is, you know, Charles Haley, who's an absolute nightmare rushing the passer. San Francisco's offense was considered the best in the NFC led by future Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana maintained and wide receiver Jerry Rice. See those guys. However, except for a 61 yard touchdown pass from Montana to wide receivers on Taylor, the Giants contained the 49ers offense very well, a sack by Giants defensive in Leonard Marshall early in the fourth quarter, not Montana out of the game. Despite their super defensive effort, the Giants still trailed 13 to nine midway through the fourth quarter. But a 30 yard run from linebacker Gary reasons on a fake punt set up kicker Matt bars for a four fill goal, cutting their deficit to 13 to 12. The 49ers, now led by Steve Young, tried to run out the clock on their ensuring possession, but running back Roger Craig had the ball dislodged by nose tackle Eric Howard and Lawrence Taylor recovered the ball in mid air with 236 remaining lead five plays later, bar kicked his fifth fill goal of 41 yarder as time expired to give New York the win. As for the bills, Jim Kelly returned from his injury to lead Buffalo to a 44 34 playoff victory over the Miami dolphins. The bills jumped to an early 20 to three lead, but Miami quarterback Dan Marino rallied his team back and cut Buffalo's lead to 30 to 27. So pretty much 230 to 27. If that makes sense, it sounds weird reading a lot of numbers here, but that was the score going into the fourth quarter. However, Buffalo scored a touchdown on their first drive with a five yard run by Thurman Thomas, kicker Scott Norwood then recovered a fumble from Miami on the ensuing kickoff, allowing the bills to put the game away with Kelly's 26 yard touchdown pass to Andre Reed. Kelly finished the game with 336 passing yards, three touchdowns and 37 rushing yards. Reed was also a major factor recording 123 receiving yards and a pair of touchdown catches. James Losten or Lofton caught seven passes for 149 in a touchdown. Thomas led the bills ground attack with 32 carries for 117 rushing yards and two touchdowns while also catching three passes for 38 yards. Buffalo then crushed the Los Angeles Raiders 51 to three in the AFC Championship game. The most lopsided score in AFC Championship game history still to this day probably won't be beat. But the bills defense dominated the Raiders offense, which spoiler was without running back Bo Jackson who suffered a career ending injury against the Cincinnati Bengals the week before limiting them to an early field goal and intercepting five passes from quarterback Jay Schroeder. Meanwhile, the bills offense racked up 502 yards piling up, you know, yards and points so fast the game was out of reach by the end of the first half. Kelly was 17 of 23 for 300 yards exactly and two touchdowns to James Lofton. Thurman Thomas had 138 yards rushing at 61 receiving and even his backup, he um, tied a playoff record with three touchdowns. So his backup was able to get in the end. When you're on your own, but we talked about it, they beat the the Dolphins 44 to 34 and then they just beat the Raiders 51 to three. Like man, that was an absolute, I don't know how many points exactly that they scored. What was like 95 or something like that? Oh, in the two games. Yeah. Anyways, the bills and the Giants entered the game using contest contrasting styles to sure. While the bills led the league and total points scored, the Giants led the league and fewest points allowed. The teams had also met earlier in the season on December 15th. The bills defeated the Giants, a Giants stadium 17 to 13 in a game which was close, but would prove to be not as close as Super Bowl 25 would end up being. Right. The bills were the heavily favored to win Super Bowl 25. Most experts expected that the Giants defense would not be able to contain the bills turbocharged, no huddle offense, which had scored 95 points. There we go. In two playoff games, many also questioned how effective the Giants offense would be after failing to score a single touchdown in the NFC championship game. Also in week 15 of the regular season, the two teams met a Giants stadium and we just talked about it. The Giants weren't able to beat the bills. As the designated home team in the annual rotation between the ASC and NFC teams, the Giants wore their home blue uniforms and white pants. The bills don't their road all white uniforms, which marked the only time they wore their white and their four consecutive Super Bowl appearances. So this was the only time they wore white. They went blue for the next three years on their jersey selection. In work, both teams wore a patch with the game logo on the left shoulder to commemorate the silver anniversary of the Super Bowl. This would not become a Super Bowl standard until Super Bowl 32. With the Gulf War having begun two or 10 days prior to the Super Bowl scheduled date of January 27, rumors had begun circulating of a possible delay or cancellation of the conference championship games and the Super Bowl. However, the NFL quickly denied those rumors by stating the games would go on as planned. To counteract the bill's no-huddle offense, the Giants used a tough-nosed conservative plan on both sides of the ball. On offense, the plan was to use a power running game utilizing Otis Anderson aided by quarterback rollouts, bootlegs, and play action fakes. As tight end Mark Mavaro later recalled, "We came out with three tight ends, fat slobs, picking you up and moving you and letting you tackle OJ if you could." This enabled them to take time off the clock and limit Buffalo's possessions with 40 minutes and 33 seconds time of possession, including 22 minutes in the second half. Sorry, that was all right there, a little bit strange, but nonetheless. On defense, New York wanted to be physical with Buffalo's wideouts and play with extra defensive backs to concentrate on stopping the bill's passing game while shifting focus away from trying to stop the bill's running game. In his book, The Education of a Coach, David Halberstan wrote that one of the defensive coordinator's specific plans, the defensive coordinator being Bill Belichick to combat the bill's offense, was pretty much about convincing his defense, who had been the best unit against the running in the NFL, that they would win the game if Thurman Thomas ran for more than 100 yards. Pretty much saying, "We're going to let you shoot twos, but we're not going to let you shoot threes. We're going to let you run the ball for 100 yards, but we're not going to let you beat us with your pass-happy attack, your offense that just can absolutely be no huddle and pretty much just gas our defense." So it's weird that Bill Belichick saying that if Thurman Thomas runs for more than 100 yards, we're going to win the game. That's usually a losing formula for running back runs for 100 yards. Usually you're losing that game. Yeah, for sure. Bill Belichick also felt that Jim Kelly was not as good at reading defenses as some of the other elite quarterbacks were, for example, Joe Montana, and that Kelly tended to quote unquote freeze while he was seeing from a series and then used that information on the next one, which meant that the Giants could be a step ahead of him all game if they alternated their cover plans from drive to drive. So starting this game out, the contrast and strategies was evident during the first quarter. After forcing the Bills to punt on their opening drive of the game, the Giants consumed six minutes and 15 seconds off the clock by marching 58 yards on 11 plays to score a 28-yard fill goal from kicker Matt Barr. In that drive, New York ran six rushing plays, which included a 10-yard run by running back Dave Meggett and five passing plays, which included quarterback Jeff Hosteller's passes for 13 and 16 yards to tie it in Howard Cross. 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We heard you loud and clear, so go to luckylandslots.com right now and play over 100 social casino style games for free. Get lucky today. At luckylandslots.com. Available to players in the U.S. excluding Washington and again, no part necessary, V.G.W. Group vibrated by law, 18-plus turn to division supply. And wide receiver Mark Ingram, yes, that Mark Ingram's father. Respectably. However, Buffalo struck right back on their ensuing possession with a 6-place, 66-yard drive that took 1 minute and 23 segments off the clock, which included a 61-yard pass from quarterback Jim Kelly, that was tipped by Giants quarterback Perry Williams, but it was ultimately caught by Bill's wide receiver James Lofton to set up first in goal for Buffalo at the New York 8-yard line. However, the Giants defense kept the Bills out of the end zone, forcing them to settle for kicker Scott Norwood's 23-yard fill goal to tie the game 3-3. After forcing New York to punt on their ensuing possession, Buffalo's offensive strategy started to work to perfection. Kelly led the Bills on a 12-play, 80-yard scoring drive that consumed 4 minutes, 27 seconds, and moved the ball so effectively that the team never faced a third down. Kelly completed six consecutive passes, four to wide receiver Andrea Reed, for 62 yards and running back Don Smith, capped off the drive with the one-yard touchdown run to give Buffalo their first lead of the game 10-3. Early in the second quarter, Smith's touchdown was his only carry of the game and the last carry of his NFL career. Reed's five receptions in the first quarter were a Super Bowl record by the way. Moving on to the second quarter, after the team's traded punts, Bills punter Rick Tuten's 43-yard cake pin the Giants at their own seven-yard line. On second down, after New York's center, Bart Oates was flagged for holding. Buffalo defensive in Bruce Smith sacked Hausteler in the end zone for a safety, increasing the Bills lead to 12-3. And it was a hard sack too, that boy had a tough time getting off to the ground. On the play, Smith had a chance to force the fumble. However, since Hausteler was holding on to the football with his throwing hand, Hausteler held the ball away from Bruce Smith intentionally, ensuring that the sack would only be a two-point safety and not lose it and end up getting, you know, a touchdown of the Bills, which would have given the Bills a Super Bowl trophy to, you know, the one by one point. This would have been, this would have mattered so much. After the next three possessions ended in punts, the Giants got the ball at their own 13-yard line with 343 left in the second quarter. They abandoned their long drive strategy and employed a quick strike attack of their own. It worked, as Hausteler led the Giants on a 10-play, 87-yard drive, which featured an 18-yard run by running back Otis Anderson and a 22-yard reception by Ingram, and a 16-yard run by Megit. The drive ended with Hausteler's 14-yard touchdown pass to wider receiver Stephen Baker, with just 25 seconds left in the half, cutting New York's deficit to 12-10. Going on to the third quarter, now the Giants opened it and resumed their original game strategy by driving 75 yards and 14 plays to score on Anderson's one-yard touchdown run, giving the Giants a 17-12 lead. The drive consumed a then Super Bowl record 9 minutes and 29 seconds, since then passed by the New York Giants themselves in Super Bowl 42, stooped, and included four successful third-down conversions. The highlight of the drive was a 14-yard reception by Ingram on third and 13, in which he caught a short pass from Hausteler and broke five tackles by the Buffalo defense to get the first down and keep the drive alive. Play of the game, right there. With this touchdown included, Anderson recorded five runs for a total of 37 yards during the drive. By this point, the Bills offense had gone nearly two hours of real-time counting the half-time show since they last possessed the ball. After forcing the Bills to punt on their ensuing possession, a bad punt by students had the Giants up with good field position at their own 42-yard line. They drove to the Buffalo 35-yard line, aided by a 10-yard catch by Cross. A defensive holding penalty by Bills cornerback Nate Odom's and a 9-yard reception by Ingram put the Bills at a pretty big disadvantage, I should say. Yeah, that holding penalty nowadays is a first down going the other way. Because then New York elected to convert a fourth into Bruce Smith tackled Anderson for a two-yard loss, giving the ball back to Buffalo on their own 37. So another huge play by Bruce Smith reminds me of Grady Jerra. I'm not going to talk much about it, but he sacked Tom Brady three times in Super Bowl 51. Tied a Super Bowl record. He showed up to play, which is why I always have love for Grady Jerra no matter what. Good shit Grady. Alright, going to the fourth quarter, immediately after the turnover on downs, the Bills advanced 63 yards in just four plays. Kelly completed a 9-yard pass to running back Thurmond Thomas, followed by a pair of passes to running back Kenneth Davis for a gain of 23 yards. On the first play of the fourth quarter, Thomas broke three tackles by the Giants defense and went the distance for a 31-yard touchdown run, putting the Bills back in front, 19-17. Thomas's touchdown marked 1,000 points scored in Super Bowl history and then 1,001 with the extra point. However, before the Buffalo defense had a chance to catch their breath, they found themselves back on the field, trying to contain another long New York drive. This one went from 14 plays, 74 yards, half of which came off three passes from Hostellar to tight end Mark Navarro and took seven and a half minutes off the clock. The Bills managed to halt that drive or halt the drive at their own three-yard line when linebacker Cornelius Bennett broke up Hostellar's third down pass. But Barr kicked a 21-yard field goal to give the Giants to lead, again, 20-19. On the Bills ensuing possession, they could only advance to their own 41-yard line before having to punt, enabling the Giants to take more time off the clock. Buffalo finally forced New York to punt and took the ball at their own 10-yard line after a 38-yard punt by Sean Lindetta or Landetta, getting one more chance for a game-winning drive with 2-16 remaining. On the Bills final possession, Kelly led the team down the field with a mix of scrambles, short passes, and a pair of runs by Thurman Thomas, of which the last one, Thurman Thomas was a critical 11-yard run, managing to get the Bills to the Giants 29-yard line, just within field goal range with eight seconds to play. Norwood attempted a 47-yard game-winning field goal from the right hash of the 37-yard line with backup quarterback Frank Wright, shout out the holder and center Adam Lingner, the long snapper. At the two-minute warning, ABC put up a graphic that showed Norwood's career history of field goal attempts of 40-plus yards on grass fields, and he was one for five. Norwood's kick sailed wide-right less than a yard outside of the goal post upright. After Norwood's missed, the Giants ran out the clock to win their second. Super Bowl title. There were many impressive performances in the game by players from both teams. Jim Kelly completed 18 for 30 for 2-12 with no interceptions while adding another 23-yard on six rushing attempts. Haas Steller completed 24-32 for 222 and a touchdown in Rush for 10 yards himself. Dave Megggett recorded 129 combined net yards, 48 rushing, 18 receiving and 37 on punt returns, 26 on kickoff returns. But the best performances came from both teams starting running backs. Otis Anderson rushed for 102, caught a pass for seven and then scored a touchdown. Thurman Thomas scored a touchdown, rushed for 135 and caught five passes, 55 yards, giving him 190 total from scrimmage. Thomas is 135 yards of the most yards rushing from a member of the losing team. This was also only the second Super Bowl to have 200-yard rushes. The aftermath of this game, the defensive game plan for the Giants, written by then-defensive coordinator Bill Belichick, has been included in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The Giants triumph helped Belichick and wide receivers coach Tom Coughlin make their names and eventually land head coaching jobs with the Cleveland Browns and Boston College respectively. Bill Belichick was head coach of the New England Patriots while Coughlin went from Boston College to be the first head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars and then spent 12 seasons as the head coach of the New York Giants before resigning in 2016. Giants head coach Bill Parsell retired shortly after winning his second Super Bowl with the Giants. However, he went on to coach three other teams since then, the New England Patriots, whom he helped to bring to Super Bowl 31 from 1993 to 1996, and then the New York Jets from 1997 to 1999 and the Dallas Cowboys from 2003 to 2006. Both Tom Coughlin and Bill Belichick have gone on to win Super Bowls as head coaches, Belichick with the Patriots and Super Bowls 36, 38, 39, 49, 51, and 53. Coughlin with the Giants and Super Bowls 42 and 46, coincidentally both against Belichick's Patriots. That's what it says here, not a shot. But this was the first Super Bowl and NFL playoff game in which neither team committed a turnover. The only other Super Bowl to date without a turnover was Super Bowl 34 in which the St. Louis Rams defeated the Titans 23 to 16. Because of Thomas' high production, some sports writers such as Sports Illustrated, Paul Zimmerman felt that he should have won Game MVP, and even though his team lost, just as Chuck Howley did, you know, in Super Bowl 5. That is it though. Shout out to the New York Giants winning their second Super Bowl. That was a nice lengthy breakdown there. Nice, nice, you know, reintroduction to team of Destin looking forward to continuing on here. I feel sorry for the Buffalo Bills because things do not get easier for them over the next few weeks. As a matter of fact, we keep things in the NFC East. Thanks, Ram. Washington Redskins. That's cool. 26. Defeat the Buffalo Bills. Mm-hmm. Sorry about you. And then Dallas Cowboys, so they go three in the NFC East. Not necessarily a fan of the NFC East if you're a Bills fan. Yeah, Bills fans cover your ears. It's gonna be rough ride. But thank you guys so much. It is getting late here. This was a little bit of a, you know, a jam-packed episode. Terry's been here for a while now. We were supposed to have Frankie Graham. Yes, sir. Certified Funky, Patron subscriber, join us. But we were having some technical difficulties on our side. Definitely on our side. We were hoping to get situated. It was just a sign-in issue and we're hoping to get that situated before Sunday so we could have Frankie Graham on next week whenever we talk about the Washington Redskins and the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl 26. So you got that to look forward to as well as many other things. If you like this show, definitely go subscribe on Patreon. This show is always going to be free and available on all of your podcasting platforms. But if you want to support us, then you can definitely do that by subscribing on Patreon following us on our social media platforms, sharing the show, guerrilla marketing, getting some more ears on this podcast as we get into some new series for the summer. So thank you guys so much for listening. Terry, you got anything to say before we officially sign out? Be on the lookout for the new champions of the Volleyball getting a mural MRO League here on your football function next week. I cannot wait for tomorrow. Hopefully we got good news coming to you guys. That's why I thank you for tuning in. As always, hopefully you guys be safe out there. Be kind to everybody. Be smart. Look out for each other. Peace and love everybody. Well said, well said. You guys all have a damn good rest of your week. Enjoy all of the NBA playoff action that you're going to be witnessing. Hopefully, you know, things are nice and cheerful at the football function and there's only one way for that to happen. And it's right behind Terry on that flag. So shout out to the Celtics. Do what you got to do to handle business against these Pacers. Make a light work of them. Let's get some more time off before the finals. You know, it's in this series on Monday. It's Thursday and we could end this Earth Wednesday. I apologize. Thursday when you're listening to this. But we could end this series very quickly if we take care of business and look forward to the Mavs. Mavs, Timbrels. Either or you got a date with destiny. And I'll say this. Banner 18 is going up in the rafters. I can, huh? You're right. We'll see what happens. But thank you guys so much. Enjoy the rest of your week. Have a damn good weekend. Walk passionately in the direction of your dreams. And I'll talk to you soon. I'm Victoria Cash. Thanks for calling the Lucky Land Hotline. 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