Game lives up to its name

After watching one of the most exciting Super Bowl games, some questions come to mind:

1. How did Archie Manning actually know that it wasn’t in his son Eli’s best interest to play for the Chargers?

2. Shouldn’t the reception by David Tyree be called “The Catch 2?” It was even more important and spectacular (since it happened in the game-winning Super Bowl drive) than the one made by Dwight Clark of the 49ers in the 1982 NFC championship game against Dallas.

3. Why was wide receiver Steve Smith always an afterthought when comparing him with teammate Dwayne Jarrett during his final season at USC, and why was he drafted after Jarrett?

4. Doesn’t Bill Belichick know that it’s OK to be a gracious loser . . . and not a poor sport like he demonstrated at the end of the game?

Richard Whorton

Valley Village

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North Carolina State over Houston. Douglas over Tyson. Hershiser’s Dodgers over Canseco’s Athletics. The disrespected Giants over the nearly canonized Patriots. With that much inspiration, Charlie Brown may finally be able to kick that elusive football from under Lucy’s fingertips after all.

Cathleen Cole

Woodland Hills

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After three dog quarters, you could almost hear Three Dog Night: Eli’s Coming.

Ron Ovadia

Irvine

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Overheard from Eli Manning to Tiki Barber: “You were saying . . . ?”

Selby Jessup

North Hollywood

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The Giants’ Super Bowl victory was sweet redemption for every team that was disrespected and piled on this year by Belicheat and his band of Spygaters. The fact that the game was lost due to “Genius Bill’s” bonehead failure to kick the second-quarter field goal made the victory that much sweeter. Watching this classless, arrogant loser sneak off the field before the game ended was the icing on the cake.

Clyde Harkins

Newport Beach

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Well, at least the Patriots did show some class by not running up the score.

Charles E. Smith Jr.

Santa Ana

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The best line from my Super Bowl party came from a woman who was watching her one and only game of the season just after the camera zoomed in on Peyton Manning in a luxury box:

“Hey, isn’t that Eli Manning’s brother?”

Glenn Sorgenstein

Santa Monica

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If anyone from the chaotic morass that is the BCS thinks a playoff wouldn’t excite, ignite and permanently alter (for the better) the landscape of college football -- they have only to look to the wonder with which Giants fans, sympathizers and now believers took the playoffs by storm.

Had the Giants been a college team with that record, they would have been relegated to a third-tier bowl on Christmas Eve. What we wouldn’t give to see a deserving college football team rise to its potential, bulldoze its way through an adrenaline-pumping postseason, and emerge, weeping and victorious, on the other end.

Shana Leon

Sherman Oaks

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The BCS was finally vindicated as the NFL proved that a playoff system is completely irrelevant.

Jack Saltzberg

Sherman Oaks