HOBART 13 bonus: Jim Ruland

Monday:
a "deleted scene" from Rolf Potts' response to Reality Hunger

yesterday:
photos & excerpts from Jac Jemc's "Notes Toward a Definition of Luck"

The Nervous Light of Sunday
by Jim Ruland

Don't call it luck.

Call it skill. Call it native intelligence. But whatever you do, don't put my Super Bowl wager in the category of luck.

On October 22, a colleague placed a wager for me at the sports book at the Hard Rock Café for the Giants to win the Super Bowl.

At the time, the Giants record was 4-2. Not bad, but not great either considering their two losses had come against the lowly Redskins, who the Giants had previously beaten six consecutive times, and the Seahawks at home, a team with a miserable road record.

The odds were 30-1. My bet was $10. If the Giants win the Super Bowl on Sunday, I stand to win $300.

But don't call me lucky. After all, when it comes to predicting world champions, it's not like I haven't been right before.

You could even say I'm the victim of bad luck.

Back in October, I instructed my colleague to bet $20, which would have doubled my winnings to $600, but he was addled by drunkenness and became confused by other, less important wagers he was making.

Beggars can't be choosers.

But also consider the timing. The week my colleague was in Vegas the Giants were on a bye. They rattled off two more wins and increased their record to 6-2. Win number six was particularly memorable for the Giants because it came against the Patriots, who they will face again in the Super Bowl. It was the Giants first quality win all year and the Patriots first regular season home loss since 2006. A somewhat bogus record since they'd suffered two humiliating home losses during the playoffs during that stretch, but still.

Things were looking good for the Giants. And then the bottom fell out. They lost four straight to the Forty-Niners, Packers, Eagles and Saints. The first two were close games, the Giants blew some chances in Philadelphia, and they were absolutely clobbered by the Saints in the Super Dome.

That brought their record to 6-6. They picked up a win against the Cowboys and then lost to the Redskins again at home. That left the Giants at 7-7 with just two games to go.

Fans called for defensive coordinator Perry Fewell's head. The media all but ran Coach Coughlin out of town. And the odds makers in Vegas put the Super Bowl odds as high as 100-1. Teams that get swept by the Redskins, they assumed, don't make the Super Bowl.

Except maybe this time they do. If I'd made my $20 bet at 100-1 odds I'd be looking at a potential $2,000 payday. Hell, at those odds I probably would have bet more than $20. A lot more.

I know what you're saying: There's no way you would have made that bet, Ruland.

That's where you're wrong. Because as bad as things looked, the Giants still controlled their own fate. All they had to do was win their last two games against the Jets and the Cowboys and not only would the Giants make the playoffs, but they'd do so as the winner of the NFC East, which was good for a fourth place seeding and a guaranteed home game against a wild card opponent.

I still believed the Giants had a puncher's chance. And I'm not the only one. Because when the odds went up to 100-1 a ton of New York and New Jersey money came down on the Giants, which now has Vegas very, very nervous.

How did this happen? Lost in Aaron Rodgers near perfect season, Drew Brees shattering all kinds of passing records, and Tom Brady being Tom Brady, the guys in the blue uniforms were setting records of their own.

Consider the following:

Giants quarterback Eli Manning threw for 4,933 yards, a franchise record.

Giants receiver Victor Cruz caught 1,536 yards, a franchise record.

For the first time in Giants history two receivers, Hakeem Nicks and Victor Cruz, each had over 1,000 yards.

These are records for a franchise that has been around since 1925.

Instead of taking note of the aptitude of the offense, the media focused on whether Eli was elite or not, and the salsa dances that the eminently likable Cruz performed when celebrating touchdowns. Every once in a while some writer would remark on the Giants accomplishments and then promptly chalk it up to the NFL trending as a passing league.

Besides, everyone knows the Giants are a team built on running the ball and defense: two things the Giant weren't very good at this year due to injuries that impacted virtually every position. Ergo, they Giants weren't very good.

But the Giants faithful knew was something special was brewing in New York. If the Giants could get all their starters on the field at the same time and get it together on defense, this team could make some noise in the NFL's second season.

We knew that the Giants won some games they had no business winning due to Eli's late game heroics and plethora of talent in the wide receiver corps.

We knew that the Giants lost some games they could have won if they'd caught a break here or there.

We knew the offense was better than it had every been in its 86-year history.

We knew we were looking at nothing short of a golden age of Giants football.

That's why we made those bets.

Why do I know this? I'm going to call on a better writer and more intense fan whose words I cribbed for this essay's title, Frederick Exley, author of A Fan's Notes:

Why did football bring me so to life? Part of it was my feeling that football was an island of directness in a world of circumspection. In football a man was asked to do a difficult and brutal job, and he either did it or got out. There was nothing rhetorical or vague about it; I chose to believe it was not unlike the jobs, which all men, in some sunnier past, had been called upon to do. It smacked of something old, something traditional, something unclouded by legerdemain and subterfuge. It had that kind of power over me, drawing me back with the force of something known, scarcely remembered, elusive as integrity — perhaps it was no more than the force of forgotten childhood. Whatever it was, I gave myself up to the Giants utterly. The recompense I gained was the feeling of being alive.

Something funny happened after that second loss to the Redskins: the Giants came back to life. They started getting their players back from injury. The defense started to click. The offense started to pull away from opponents. They pasted the Jets and the Cowboys in back-to-back games at home. They trounced the Falcons on wildcard weekend. They went to Green Bay and completely disrupted the Packers in a game that wasn't as close as the final score. They went to San Francisco for the NFC Championship and outlasted the Forty-Niners in a downpour. Six weeks from ignominy to this.

Now, having won five win-or-go-home games in a row and coming off the toughest strength of schedule in the entire NFL, they will face a Patriots team that is dead last in the NFL in defense, had the easiest strength of schedule all year, and were outplayed in virtually every facet of the AFC Championship, yet squeaked out a win.

Mark my words: Giants will win, they will win going away, and luck will have nothing to do with it.

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All February, Hobart will update every weekday with new bonus material --
photo essays, deleted scenes, interviews, extra short-shorts, movies, excerpts, and other Hobart 13: LUCK.