The Superbowl XLVI rematch of New England Patriots and New York Giants shouldn’t really surprise anyone.

There weren’t many suitors for the AFC crown that could sport points at will like New England. 

There were great defensive teams like Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Houston and Cincinnati but did anyone really think they were the money picks this year to advance out of the conference?

Pittsburgh and Houston had injured or third string quarterbacks or both.

Baltimore rarely scored enough, and Cincinnati went with all rookies.

Throw in the unreliable mystique of the Denver Broncos and Tim Tebow and we get what we expected: New England in the Superbowl.

For the Giants the field was much more daunting but they got healthy and ridiculously hot at just the right time. Everyone said they looked as they scraped into the playoffs like Green Bay looked last January when they pulled up their boot straps and got things done.

The Giants almost beat Green Bay in the regular season in a 38-35 game, and gained enough confidence that they would do it again. It was a similar 38-35 loss to New England on the final day of the 2007 regular season that gave the boost to the Giants confidence before that playoff sweep.

Perhaps experience is the reason the Giants seem to turn things up a notch and win all the big games in timely fashion. Entering the Superbowl their (soon to be elite) quarterback, Eli Manning, has notoriously built the greatest penchant for winning playoff road games against the odds in NFL history.

At the end of the 2007 season the Giants won on the road at Tampa Bay, Dallas, and Green Bay to make it to the Superbowl. Knocking off all the conference seeds in a row...and ultimately finishing with a neutral site win over the then unbeaten Patriots.

This year what they have accomplished actually appears more difficult but we must fall short of calling it completely unexpected because they seem to score at will when they need a score and have filled out their game with more pass rush and running game as playoffs approached.

THE PATRIOTS NOT FOOLED

Now as I type this Vegas has already posted the Patriots as three point favorites but it seems hard for anyone to explain why without adding that “anything can happen in the NFL”. 

Vegas is probably just tempting passionate Giants fans – there may be more of them that would take the bet – to put money down disputing that line.

But that said they also can’t say with certainty that the Giants will continue to win and beat New England for the second time in the same season (Patriots only lost three games this year) let alone second time in Superbowls.

You got to believe the Patriots see them coming this time and that they have anticipated this next collision for some time.

Vegas and the most optimistic Patriot fans are hopeful but not adamant. They are careful to not say the Pats will definitely win this thing. And I assume the Giants supporters are of the same mindset towards their prospect of victory.

Frankly neither team has an excuse big enough to induce losing. They are both good candidates to win this matchup.

Usually there is one team that has a huge advantage in running game or on defense where we can say if they do xyz they win this game but this time we just are not feeling it.

Both offenses are very good, and that is good news for Manning who may have put away the naysayers by leading a team back to the Superbowl with a completely new set of wide receivers the second time. Showing he can make good receivers out of anyone just like Tom Brady historically has.

The debate used to be whether Manning should be considered in the same breath as other elite QBs let alone Brady who heads the class.

If his consecutive starts streak and becoming only the fifth quarterback in history after Drew Brees, Dan Marino, Brett Favre and Peyton Manning to have five consecutive seasons with a minimum of 3000 yards passing and 20 TDs hasn’t vaulted him into that universe then what will?

Beating Brady and the Patriots again maybe?

Yeah that would do it.

MOST MOTIVATION

Not only do these teams both have no excuses for losing they really have all the motivation and then some to want to win this one.

Bragging rights, revenge for the Patriots, Eli’s vindication as elite, legend status for coach Belichick or just redemption for Brady who of all the active quarterbacks to have won a Superbowl now has waited the longest to repeat since winning back in January 2005.

Maybe the players in the game that haven’t won a Superbowl yet will be the difference makers with their raw desire to win and coincidentally New England has the most of those.

But the Giants have the most returning champions from Superbowl XLII and are quite aware of what it takes to win big games over and over again. No group of players other than the seventeen still on the Giants from 2007 have overcome odds and won big games as many times as those guys.

So still we can find no bubbling reason for either team to lose, and they are both remarkably healthy – as healthy as any Superbowl pair could be with their key regulars playing for sure.

Then what do the stats tell us and are there any specific trends that may give us a clue as to which team might finish on top in this Superbowl?

Both teams are winning everything right now even when they deserve not to. They both came precociously close to not winning their title games against the two teams in the league best built to stop an offense.

Brady coughed up the ball twice to Baltimore and had two more turnovers that were called back by officials. The Baltimore receiver dropped what would have been the winning points in the end zone and the kicker missed the consolation tying field goal which would have caused overtime.

The Giants let their QB get sacked six times against the league’s best San Francisco defense. They won that game on a grass home field of the 49ers in the rain with another fourth quarter score because of punt/kickoff return mistakes by Kyle Williams of the 49ers.

So it is similar that both teams capitalized on mistakes to get to Superbowl XLVI. There are many other such similarities between the teams except when it comes to regular season record.

JUDGE A TEAM BY RECORD?

We can’t really judge them by record though because there were better teams like Green Bay (15-1) that haven’t done as well in the playoffs, so one could argue, and Green Bay last year proved, when the slate is wiped clean and records don’t count New England’s 13 wins are now equal to the Giants 9 regular season wins.

As fate may have it, just as in the 2007 season, they had similar schedules as close as you could have for playing in opposite conferences.

This was the year the AFC East and NFC East divisions played each other. In that respect to no one’s surprise the Patriots fared best - but they were the 13 win team.

The Giants and Patriots both beat the New York Jets, but the Giants victory was absolutely necessary to control their destiny and make the playoffs.

They both had scares in a game with Miami but ultimately prevailed.

They played close games with Buffalo, where offense mattered, and New England even lost one to the Bills.

On the NFC side the Giants hobbled in to Philadelphia on crutches and won when they were at their worst, but gave away the home game late in the season while the “Philly Dream Team” took their lumps from New England.

Combined they played squeakers versus Dallas but didn’t lose.

Each team struggled with the Washington Redskins. In fact the Redskins beat New York twice perhaps showing the world the way to frustrate the Giants may be to keep play in front of the safeties all game.

Teams are built to beat the teams in their own divisions. The beauty though of the NFL is there is not one trodden road that a team must take from point A to point B to win. Certain teams are the antidote for other teams and that is why what another team does successfully to stop an opponent is often copied.

We can learn from some of the close games what worked to limit the offenses because doing so in this Superbowl will matter.

Whatever Philadelphia tried to do to stop the Patriots and counter attack certainly didn’t work, but if either of these teams could install a little Miami or Washington abrasiveness on defence they would have a great shot at winning.

This may be a telling factor if you notice that in two of the New England losses, to Pittsburgh and Buffalo, and in the Giants losses when they were most uncomfortable playing the hard hitting Redskins the teams’ offenses looked frustrated and it affected their play.

JUDGE A TEAM BY MINDSET?

Here are some other stats that might give reason to believe that psychology and player mindset could be the biggest clue to what will after kickoff.

In their book, Who Will Win the Big Game: 50 Championship Characteristics a Psychological and Mathematical Method for Identifying Winning Players, Teams and Coaches (published by World Audience Inc, 2010), Carlton Chin and Jay Grenat, a fund manager and a psychotherapist, suggest that based on their review of every Superbowl since 1967 there are five evaluators that are the most key in forecasting who might win.

They include Super Bowl experience, which team has the best defense, the quarterback that best minimizes errors, confidence that they can score oodles of points, and consistency in their game as it relates to time of possession stats.

The team with more experience has won over 60 percent of all Superbowls so mark an edge to the Giants with their recent win even though a handful of Patriots have won more than one.

Also almost 70 percent of Superbowls have been won by the team with the best defence in the regular season. They measure that defence by points against and not yards against.

Defence – can we really consider that here?

This factor may be muted in 2012 as this game is absent the steel curtain type defence sometimes on display. Even just last year the number one and two ranked defenses (Green Bay and Pittsburgh) met in Superbowl XLV.

This year the teams were far from elite in that category.