• Recommend0
• Tweet0
• Comments0
• Email
• Print

Justin Tuck, Brick Strong

Rachel Nichols examines the friendship between Giants DE Justin Tuck and a young fan who died following a battle with leukemia.Tags: Tuck, Brick Strong, Evan Sullivano, Debbie Sullivano, Rachel Nichols

Justin Tuck, Brick Strong

INDIANAPOLIS -- Several New York Giants said all week long that they were expecting to be Super Bowl XLVI champions.

On the eve before the big game, an image proclaiming the Giants as Super Bowl champions was accidentally posted on the Giants official website. The page was taken down after a "brief period."

[+] Enlarge

Giants.comOn the eve before the big game, an image proclaiming the Giants as Super Bowl champions was accidentally posted on the Giants official website. The page was taken down after a "brief period."

"It is common practice for both teams to create web pages in advance of the conference championship games and Super Bowl," the NFL said in a statement. "In this case, the hidden URL for the page was inadvertently available for a brief period of time while it was being positioned on the NFL server for possible post tomorrow night."

The Giants.com page briefly had a headline that read "The Giants are Super Bowl champions!" with an ad for official Giants Super Bowl championship gear on it. There was a link to enter Giants.com on the image which contained game photos of defensive end Justin Tuck, linebacker Mathias Kiwanuka, defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul, quarterback Eli Manning and a shot of the Vince Lombardi trophy.

There have not been any guarantees by the Giants, but there's been plenty of material for Bill Belichick to post on his bulletin board.

Safety Antrel Rolle started the Giants' Super Bowl week by saying the team boarded its charter flight with the mentality that they were expecting to win the Super Bowl. He later added "we are going to win this thing."

"Me saying we wouldn't board a plane if you don't expect to win ... what kind of guy do you want?" Rolle said earlier this week. "Do you want a guy to say, 'I don't know?' Hell no, we boarded the plane expecting to win."

Defensive tackle Chris Canty later delivered a message to fans on WNBC-TV camera to "get ready for a parade on Tuesday."

Pierre-Paul also said New England quarterback Tom Brady is not God and that the Giants had the Patriots quarterback feeling pressure even when the pass rush wasn't near him during their 24-20 win in November. Brady ducked during one third-quarter play with nobody right next to him in the pocket.

"Anybody can be rattled," Pierre-Paul said. "Tom Brady is a great quarterback, but at the end of the day, he is just a quarterback. It is not like he is God."

Giants head coach Tom Coughlin said his team's talk has been no different than Brady telling a crowd of approximately 25,000 fans at a Patriots pep rally to send the team off last Sunday, "We're going to give it our best and hopefully we have a lot more people at our party next weekend."

"I don't," Coughlin said Friday when asked if he has a problem with the bravado coming from his players. "I know there have been one or two quotes out there. But to be honest with you, I don't know that any one of them have been any different than Tom Brady's."

Ohm Youngmisuk covers the Giants for ESPNNewYork.com.

• Recommend0
• Tweet0
• Comments0
• Email
• Print

Ohm Youngmisuk

ESPNNewYork.com

• Follow
• Archive

Ohm Youngmisuk has covered the Giants, Jets and the NFL since 2006. Prior to that, he covered the Nets, Knicks and the NBA for nearly a decade. He joined ESPNNewYork.com after working at the New York Daily News for almost 12 years and is a graduate of Michigan State University.
Follow him on Twitter »  Ohm's chat archive »