What can I say!?  The Giants broke our hearts again.  This was the single sentence sent me by fellow Giants fan and wonderful comedy writer, John DeBellis, when we lost against the Titans a few years ago despite being ahead twenty-one zip at the half and cruising along to a win.  But we lost.  And John's E-mail just said:

They broke our hearts again.

That's what they do, what they seem to have done many times in the past.  They don't just lose -- they break your heart.

We should be in the game.  We beat both the Cardinals and the Steelers in their own park.  But we played badly against the Eagles and were left out of post season.  Rather, we left ourselves out of post season.

They broke our hearts.  This is what the Giants do.  When they're not acting like super heroes, as they did last year.  Thank God for last year.

Yeah, you can blame Plax for shooting himself, Osi's early season injury, bad game planning, Eli's miscues and other miscellaneous things.  But the fact is, we screwed up and the Eagles beat us.  They played extremely well.  The bastids. 

They broke our hearts again.

At least it wasn't the Cowboys.  

At around Week 10, I was imagining a whole bunch of Super Bowl fantasy scenarios.  The Titans were undefeated at the time and I was dreaming of another Super Bowl where the Giants would up-end another unbeaten team.

Then the Titans lost.  And other scenarios occurred. 

We could still play the Titans and face Kerry Collins, who I loved as a Giant, love as a QB despite his flaws (what QB doesn't have them!?),  and thought he wasn't treated fairly by the team I love.  He was on fire many seasons ago, racked points against the Niners in the playoff game the refs and our defense and Jim Fassel blew with bad coaching.  But Kerry was great down the stretch.   I'm glad for his resurgence and think he should be the MVP because the Titans wouldn't be anywhere without him. 

But that's not how MVP stuff works.

 So, the Super Bowl could be a face-off between Kerry and the QB who replaced him.  My loyalties wouldbe tested.  Like when Tom Seaver first faced the Mets as a Cincinatti Red.  God, how could baseball put us fans through this torture?  My Mets.  Against Mr. Met himself.  Tom Terrific.  Oh, the pain.

But then the Titans went down.  Okay.  The pain factor is lessened.

So I thought about a Manning vs. Manning SuperBowl.  Wow!  Could the media have fun with that and while I think Peyton is great, I have no emotional investment in the guy.   But then the Colts went down.  

All that was left was a possible 2000Super Bowl  rematch between us and the Ravens, whom we beat during the season.  Revenge!  Love it!   Or a rematch betweenUS and the Steelers, whom we also beat during the regular season.

Then the Ravens and US went down.  And now it's the Steelers and the Cardinals.

What's left for me? I sob and whine.  Sort of what the old Brooklyn Dodger fans used to say,  "wait'll last year."

But, at least it's not the Eagles or the Cowboys or the Skins.

I WILL, however, be rooting for Kurt Warner.  A great football story and a guy who handled himself with dignity and class the year he was with us and played behind a bad offensive line, less than good receivers, an offensive scheme that was, well, offensive, and a defensive coordinater who should be strung up by his ... strung up.

That was Eli's first year and Kurt was yanked mis-season for him.  And he never complained, whined and did his utmost to help Eli along.  

A fabulous QB, a classy guy and I want him to win. 

Cardinals by 10.