The team from New York City is the shy one. The Giants are overlooked as well as underdogs. It makes no sense. They tiptoed into town. They have a curfew, as if the bright lights of Tampa would blind them.
They left Broadway and are watching the Baltimore Ravens hog the biggest sports stage in the world. Something is out of order.
The Giants are the team with the better quarterback, the compelling Kerry Collins, whose life story is made for the movies.
Their cornerback, the dashing Jason Sehorn, proposed to “Law & Order” actress Angie Harmon on Jay Leno’s show.
Their rookie running back, Ron Dayne, won the Heisman Trophy as the nation’s most outstanding college player.
Yet the Giants are the boring half of this Super sideshow, the team nobody knows or cares about.
The Ravens are coming as close as they can come to guaranteeing victory. Only New Yorkers are expected to do that. Only the Jets’ Broadway Joe Namath ever did.
“A guy asked me that question, `Are you guys going to win?'” said Ray Lewis. “Yeah. Why say we’re not? I’m not here to lose. I’m not saying we’re going to blow them out.”
How about shut them out?
“It’s always in the back of our minds,” cornerback Duane Starks said.
How many points do the Ravens need?
“I think we only need 10. A touchdown and a field goal to seal things would be OK,” Starks said.
Tony Siragusa already has proclaimed the Ravens’ defense the greatest of all time.
“If we don’t win, maybe there will be a doubt, but if we do, there will be no question we’re the best defense ever,” Siragusa said.
Not even the Bears of the 1980s, as cocky and confident and good as they were, spent much time anointing themselves as the greatest defense to ever play.
Said Shannon Sharpe: “We came down here to win a football game, and I like our chances. It’s going to be very difficult for us to lose.”
And who is the best linebacker in history?
“Me,” Lewis said. “That’s not hard.”
The Giants are the midgets. But don’t mistake the low profile for an inferiority complex. They are more like the Ravens than they publicly admit. They swagger in private.
“The less said and the more done, the better I like it,” coach Jim Fassel said.
“Coach told us he didn’t want to hear us say anything,” Michael Strahan said. “I don’t need to put pressure on teammates; it’s selfish. He meant less talk in the papers. In the locker room, we’re not going to shut up in there.”
Jessie Armstead, one of Lewis’ good friends who also majored in trash talk at the University of Miami, is going to bite clean through his tongue before Sunday.
“Everybody wants to be Muhammad Ali,” Armstead said. “One thing about this game of football: It’s not an individual sport. It’s hard to talk for a whole team.
“I have Riddell. Riddell will do all the talking for me.”
Riddell who?
“The Riddell helmet I wear,” Armstead explained.
Every Super Bowl team acquires a personality. If it doesn’t arrive with one, it gets assigned one before the week is out. Invariably, both teams work their jaws to the bone to gain the upper hand on being the underdog.
Point spreads are irrelevant in this little game before the big game. It’s a matter of disrespect, the one subject that pushes nearly every player’s button, no matter how big or small the stakes.
Lewis explained why he thinks he’s the best.
“You can’t ever walk on the field and see your opponent across from you and think to yourself, `Hey, man, he’s good,'” Lewis said. “The thing we live by is you never have to respect anybody else you’re playing against, but don’t ever disrespect them. That’s when you take it to a totally different level.”
Lewis was trying to make a small distinction. Most Giants read it as disrespect.
In turn, the Ravens claim the Giants are disrespecting them because they are annoyed by the trash-talking.
And Lewis has a pile of ammunition, starting with the New York Post headline: “Lewis Still a Pathetic Disgrace.”
But all in all, the Giants have won the pregame race for the honor of Most Disrespected. Their 84-year-old owner, Wellington Mara, set the stage two weeks ago by declaring he wanted to become “the worst team ever to win a Super Bowl.”
“That ring is going to look the same on the worst as it does on the best,” Strahan said.
The Ravens’ attitude starts with coach Brian Billick.
“I think Brian’s personality fits more players on this team than probably any other coach’s personality fits their team,” Sharpe said. “Brian loves to talk. He’s brash. Brian has an ego. We love that because we show our ego. That’s who we are. I don’t fault the Giants for taking their approach, but no one can knock us for taking our approach. We can’t remain calm and quiet and subdued like they are because then that’s not who we are.”
Giants guard Glenn Parker may have lost four Super Bowls with the Buffalo Bills, but they did provide perspective. He is not offended by the Ravens’ braggadocio.
“That’s what they do,” Parker said. “We’re a quiet, steady team. Maybe that’s where they get their confidence. There’s that mob mentality. That’s how they get ready.”
What the Ravens are doing is getting the Giants ready too. Not that anybody needs motivation for this one, but it does take one more task off the list of things to do.
“It takes the pressure off us and puts it on them because they’re supposed to pitch a shutout,” Sehorn said. “All we have to do is win.”
“We know everything they said,” Lomas Brown said. “We have it written down. That’s the topic of breakfast in the morning.”
