Super Bowl Odds: Pick the New York Giants

By: | www.sbrforum.com
The Super Bowl kickoff is just around the corner, and it looks like the NFL odds makers have decided to give the betting edge to the Partiots. Not so fast boys. I am here to tell you why the New York Giants will win the Super Bowl this year.

The New York Giants and New England Patriots continue preparations for Super Bowl 46 in Indianapolis on February 5 at 6:30 PM ET. Sportsbooks currently favor the Patriots by -3 points with the total at 55.5. I’m here to tell you that the NFL odds makers have backed the wrong team.

Take a defense playing with attitude and flare and combine it with a red hot quarterback and you’ve got the ingredients for an NFL championship. That’s why I was all over the G-Men from the start and was luchy enough to grab the opening number of +3.5 points.

Eli ManningIt’s no fluke that the Giants (14-9 SU, 13-9-1 ATS) are back in the Super Bowl this season. They survived a hard hitting game with the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC championship and used a pair of fumbles from kick returner Kyle Williams to punch their ticket to Super Bowl 46.

Did the best team win on that soggy Sunday in San Francisco? You’ll get arguments from some that the only reason Tom Coughlin’s team is headed for Indianapolis is thanks to the turnovers by Williams. If you’ve been following the playoffs then you know those mistakes might have helped, but this team has earned its way to Indianapolis the old fashioned way.

Eli’s elite status

Prior to the start of the season, Eli ruffled some feathers when he told reporters that he deserved to be considered, along with his brother Peyton and Super Bowl 46 counterpart Tom Brady as one of the best quarterbacks in the business. If his play during the season (playoffs included) hasn’t established his greatness, nothing ever will.

He’s thrown 15 fourth-quarter touchdown passes this year, plus another eight in three playoff games, as he’s beaten the two best teams in the NFC (Packers and Niners) in the process.

During the regular season, Manning threw for 4923 yards with 29 touchdown passes. In three playoff games, he’s thrown for 923 yards with eight TD’s, earning a passer rating of 103.1. Those numbers are a testament to his talen,t but how about his toughness? Against San Francisco, he attempted 64 passes and was hit on 20 occasions, knocked down 12 times and sacked six times. He took a severe licking but kept on ticking and as a result he helped the Giants get back to the big game.

Repeat performance

For New York, the road to Super Bowl XLVI is eerily familiar to the path they took four years ago on the way to Super Bowl XLII. Towards the end of 2007, the Giants played the best team in the NFL (the New England Patriots) at home in a close game. While they did lose, they did play well enough to come out of the game with renewed confidence and a feeling that if they were to meet New England again, they could beat them.

Tom CoughlinThis year the same thing happened with this year’s best team, the Green Bay Packers. They lost a close one to the Packers in Lambeau but were able to beat them handily in their playoff rematch.

No respect

Each of the past two times New York has played New England, the last time being November 6th of this season, New York came into the game as the sports betting underdog only to walk away with the win. Adding to the impressive nature of those two victories was the fact that on both occasions the Giants were playing on the road.

Overall, the Giants have won and covered five straight dating back to December 24 when they beat the Jets. They’ve also won eight of their last nine, with the only blemish being a December 18 setback to the Redskins.

So the question once again begs to be asked; why are the Giants the underdogs again heading into Super Bowl XLVI?

Dating back to 2007, the New York Giants have won six straight playoff games away from home. That’s the longest playoff road winning streak in NFL history, and shows beyond a reasonable doubt that the Giants are a team capable of winning anytime or anyplace, including this year’s NFL championship game.


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