var TH "Yor or ait ol RT aw SS AN Gv il CR AY LR a. The Fourth Wall page 7 By Tony Arnold News/Sports Editor I spoke with a certain someone in a private correspondence. “I’m predicting a beautiful performance. by Eli ~~ Manning—Ilike Hemingways bullfighters—minus the bandilleros and the sword thrust at the end,” I said in what was to be prophetic enthusiasm. I was very much intent on watching the upstart New York Giants—3-0 NFL fans and very nearly in my own, the best team to ever play the game of American football. The Pats were the only team ever to go 16-0 in a season (the ’72 Dolphins played only 14 regular season games) and were the first team ever 18-0 overall (again, the ’72 Dolphins played only 17 games total before capping. their perfect season). Aside from this impressive résumé, the Pats also made the additional statement of helm, and an overall conditioning to disappointment led almost any football fan with half a brain to bet the hell out of the yawning point spread that lay between the New York Giants and the unassailable enigma that was the Patriots not unpredictable and what unfolded in Glendale, Arizona on Sunday, February 03, 2008 matches very perfectly with that enduring assumption. What is very plain to note here to be an MVP performance in Super Bowl XLII. The oft-derided younger brother of Peyton went 19/ 34 with 255 yards, two touchdowns, and what can only be fairly described as an indirect interception (Garber). The numbers speak volumes but what is most imperative to note about Eli’s performance is the z on the road in ‘the 2008 postseason—dethrone ‘what was prematurely predicted’ to be the To be sure, I took myself only half seriously. The New England Patriots were, in the eyes of most demoralizing most of their fashion one might only expect to witness at Waterloo or Dien Bien Phu. Additionally, their two banner players, quarterback Tom Brady and wide receiver Randy Moss each broke the regular season touchdown records at their respective positions. A wrecking ball never made so commanding a statement. * On the reverse side of this coin lay an etching not quite so well chiseled: A seismic quarterback in Eli = Manning, a fairly monochromatic wide-receiving corps with Plaxico Burress at the determination which is a drawback the man who keeps that memory from fading into obscurity, Brett Favre. Indeed, the world thought Favre when, during the Giants’ game-winning drive, Eli spun out of a hopelessly persistent mass of yard pass to receiver David Tyree (Garber). Undoubtedly, Eli Manning earned his stripes in that 42M Super Bowl and dually earned his name in the annals of NFL history. To return to my prediction once more, I would just like to say that I was prophetic about Eli’s performance in a much more metaphorical fashion. Indeed, Eli was not very unlike one of Hemingway’s bullfighters, whom he most notably aggrandizes—and simultaneously chides—in his Death in the Afternoon. The quarterback feigned his opponents, dodging them with terrific veronicas like the 33-yard resuscitative play to Tyree, and, bull straight in the face and stood stolidly: in place. What Ernest Hemingway found most admirable about those bullfighters of whom he possessed immeasurable respect was the ability to recognize death in the horns and yet face that not so fantastical to posit that Eli Manning saw death in the horns of the New England Patriots on Super Bowl Sunday. In light of this revelation, I realize [ was wrong on one-account.. The final sword thrust occurred in this bloody mess—whether it was the game- winning touchdown pass to Burress or the final kneel-down— and it-became quite clear that Eli Manning had the resolution to kill the bull from the very beginning.
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