Hey Ryer

Hey Ryer,


They did it. They did it. They fucking did it. The Giants won the Super Bowl (and without your boy Shockey) in the biggest upset since the Jets in '68. Oh you motherfucker, you would have loved it.

It wasn't like how miserable we were when they caved in 2000, getting hammered by the Ravens in the Super Bowl in as terrible a game as I've ever watched.

It wasn't like how pissed we were in 2001 when they dropped that game to the Vikings, losing by a point, one fucking point, in the last minutes. No, it wasn't like that.

It wasn't like when they dropped that lead in 2003, when the Niners found their legs in the fourth quarter and the Giants caved again, and I was furious and swearing this Goddamn team off... again. No, it wasn't like that either.

No, Ryer, it wasn't like that at all.. Know what it was like? It was like that last game in 2004, a month before you died, when everyone somehow got tickets for that last Giants-Cowboys game.

That was the day that you didn't want to come over by where we were all tailgating because you were being a bitch like you tended to do, crying about some thing or another. That's when Chud called you, saying "If you don't come hang out, I'm burning your ticket, and you're not getting in". That got your ass over there. Really quickly.

We got drunk for hours, all fifteen or so of us, and went in to that Stadium expecting the Giants to blow it like they always did, to dissapoint us in all the creative ways that they'd mastered over the years. Big Blew it? Yup. For a long time they always did. They had lost eight in a row at that point, and our season was down the toilet. But tickets were tickets, and drinking was drinking. So more like loyal drunks than Giants fan, we took the oppurtunities.

But you remember that shit? The Giants kept it close, fighting as hard as they had all year, but were still down in the fourth quarter. I thought it was over, but then I'm a pessimist. What we saw in that last two minutes of that game reminded us again why we loved football.

We watched, in shock and fucking awe, as Eli Manning marched that broken down Giants team down like a Field Marshal, showing flashes of his pedigreee, and an innate strength of character that we never knew he had. When Tiki took that ball in for the last touchdown as time ran out, breaking records as he did, we watched the future of the Giants walk off the field for the first time... as a winner.

One of the last things I remember from that night was asking you if you were driving home, and you closed your eyes and put your head down and said, "Man, I am so fucking drunk. I can't do anything."

Well, that's what this day, this game, was like, Ryer. It was horrible and beautiful and senselessly stressful to watch, and I thought it was over at the end. But Manning took that team, grabbed them by the scruff of their neck, and dusted them off, marching them back down like a fucking warrior in the two minute drill, just like the first time we watched him. With that last touchdown pass with thirty-five seconds left, he put a nail in the heart of New England, and struck the bells that signalled the death knell of these 18-0, undefeated Patriots, the twelve point favorites.

I hope they have TV's wherever the hell you are, and I hope you saw it. We were all thinking of you when they won. I'll be there this week sometime, and I'm leaving a Giants flag on your grave. I said all along that God willed the Giants to win... but I like to think maybe you had something to do with it, too.



Rest in Peace brother. Go Big Blue.