highvaluetarget: Please tell the class what game you are talking about when you say the Pats choked?

I was referring to whiskeyinthejar's post suggesting that the Giants/Pats game was a chokejob. I responded that I thought the Cowboys had a harder choke against the Giants than the Pats did? That was not intended to mean the Patriots choked, it was intended to mean that "if you thought the Pats game was a choke, then you should really look at the cowboys game."

Can I give the Giants props for playing a great game (well the Defense anyway) AND accuse the Pats of choking?

Cuz they did... and they did.

Hell of a game though.

Daniels: highvaluetarget: Please tell the class what game you are talking about when you say the Pats choked?

I was referring to whiskeyinthejar's post suggesting that the Giants/Pats game was a chokejob. I responded that I thought the Cowboys had a harder choke against the Giants than the Pats did? That was not intended to mean the Patriots choked, it was intended to mean that "if you thought the Pats game was a choke, then you should really look at the cowboys game."

Gotcha'. I'm a little slow today. Trying to work and fark is too much for me.

Moses To Sandy Koufax: You know soccer is awesome when losing a two goal lead with 45 minutes to play is considered choking.
Wait, did I say awesome? Because I meant gay beyond belief.

What if a goal was worth seven points? And there was 7 minutes to play, but you spread the 7 minutes of actual playing over an hour and a half? Would that be better?

They forgot the 2002 Giants -vs- 49ers playoff game...that was miserable. Might I also add "November 19, 1978" to the list...Giants fans should know that date quite well.

man_they_couldnt_hang: Just knew there would not be any cricket examples.

Whats wrong with the 1999 World Cup South African semi-final loss? Or the reverse game when Australia failed to defend the then world record total, in the 2006 ODI?

/To name two of the top of my head.
//Answer is probably: Because no one cares about cricket.

Now that's not true. I mean, hell, Indian cricket fans care enough to riot at matches.

Granted they did it because they were bored to death by the game...

Under impressive comebacks/chokes in otherwise meaningless games, you have...

* the Mariners, who lost to the Indians 15-14 after leading 12-2 in the bottom of the seventh, and

* the Braves, who lost to the Mets 11-8 after leading 8-1 with one out in the bottom of the eighth, and

* the Astros, who lost to the Pirates 9-8 after leading 8-2 in the bottom of the ninth with two out and nobody on.

Izigaul

Brady's pretty much the ONLY Patriot who DIDN'T Choke. The dude took more hits than Tommy Chong at Hempfest and still kept getting up and going at it.

Dear SI,

Thank you for not including Maryland choking against Duke. I heard Billy Packard say that enough during this tournament.

Sincerely,
Me

what about the 2001 Blazers. Didn't they score something like 5 point in the fourth quarter of the western conference finals? Pippen throwing the towel at Sabonis?

Yeah, they went into the 4th with a 13 pt lead. It would have been 16 had Brian Shaw not made a three at the buzzer in the 3rd. That was really a hard one to swallow. Pretty sure it was Wallace who towled Sabonis though...not sure if it was that game. Maybe Sabonis was towled multiple times.

Would like to point out that had Sabonis come when he was young, there might never have been a Pistons or Bulls 1 dynasty. Ugh. The Blazers would have won 5-6 titles with a young Sabonis in the middle instead of Duckworth.

jimpoz - that's some good stuff right there.

SharkTrager: man_they_couldnt_hang: Just knew there would not be any cricket examples.

Whats wrong with the 1999 World Cup South African semi-final loss? Or the reverse game when Australia failed to defend the then world record total, in the 2006 ODI?

/To name two of the top of my head.
//Answer is probably: Because no one cares about cricket.

Now that's not true. I mean, hell, Indian cricket fans care enough to riot at matches.

Granted they did it because they were bored to death by the game...


Not like your baseball matches, where, if The Simpsons has taught me anything, you have to drink to make the game interesting.

/Just assuming you are American.
//And would take some offence at me taking the michael out of baseball.
///Meh.

Zeebot: White

I wish I could choke like the White Sox did in 2005.

Dissociater: According to Sports illustrated:

Before the 2004 Yankees, there were the 1942-43 Red Wings. Up three games to none in the Stanley Cup finals, Detroit was on the brink of sending the Toronto Maple Leafs home. But led by Leafs fourth-liner Don Metz and goalie Turk Broda, the Red Wings completed arguably the greatest comeback in sports history, winning Lord Stanley's Cup.

So poorly written. The Red wings did NOT complete a comback, they were the team that the LEAFS completed the comeback on. The best part is they got the year wrong too. The Leafs completed their comeback 1941-42 season.

In 1942-43 Detroit was the winner, 4-0 over boston.

Aren't these guys supposed to know sports?


When was the last time SI actually covered a sport? Just about every issue I've read since the turn of the century has been nothing but suck up interviews and hype articles.

man_they_couldnt_hang: SharkTrager: man_they_couldnt_hang: Just knew there would not be any cricket examples.

Whats wrong with the 1999 World Cup South African semi-final loss? Or the reverse game when Australia failed to defend the then world record total, in the 2006 ODI?

/To name two of the top of my head.
//Answer is probably: Because no one cares about cricket.

Now that's not true. I mean, hell, Indian cricket fans care enough to riot at matches.

Granted they did it because they were bored to death by the game...


Not like your baseball matches, where, if The Simpsons has taught me anything, you have to drink to make the game interesting.

/Just assuming you are American.
//And would take some offence at me taking the michael out of baseball.
///Meh.

Sorry. I only watch baseball in person, and mostly because it's a good place to hang out with friends and family, even though the beer is too expensive.

Baseball is a sport where you can very easily follow and support your team without ever actually watching a game. In fact, it's more fun that way.

I'm almost surprised to not see the Tribe's collapse last year against the BoSox. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge Cleveland fan, but losing three straight with some of your teams biggest arms on the mound is pretty damn pathetic. Then again, I guess that fall might not be worse than the ones listed.

/Tribe '08
//50 years worth of slashies

BAH! 60 years!

The size of the balls on the NHL goalies who WORE NO HELMETS must have been a heavy burden to carry.

Wow.

Just wow.

The_Sponge: I'm just glad they didn't mention the Mariners choke job against Cleveland back in 2001.

They were up by 12 runs, and managed to fark it up and lose.

My Grandpa was watching that game with me, and there was a 50% chance he would have thrown his beer at the TV.

/He didn't, though.

I remember watching that game in a hotel room. don't remember where i was just that I wasn't even really watching it, just had the TV on, then it got interesting.

Giants loss to SF in January of 2003 was an epic choke.

/Giants fan.

So was their playoff loss to Minnesota in January 1998.

But their win against New England this year is, for my money, the best championship football game ever played.

The Green Bay/Dallas Ice Bowl had a great finish, but the game was, for the most part, uninteresting and without fantastic, career-defining plays. For the most part.

With perfection, not to mention the Lombardi Trophy, in the balance, both teams performed magnificently.

Only Eli out Bradyed Brady. More yards from fewer attempts. One more TD pass, and a masterful drive under amazing pressure.

Not a choke, a tremendous performance by my G-men for the ages.

FC Bayern's loss to Manchester United was horrendous in 98, giving up 2 goals, the lead, and the cup in injury time.

/Bayern fan.

//Lived in Munich when they won 3 straight Bundesliga championships. 6 of the 11 on the 74 World Cup champs from FCB. Unbelievable.

///Glory days.

Bufu
"But their win against New England this year is, for my money, the best championship football game ever played."

It was the second most watched tv show, ever. If you made a movie script out of it, no one would say the story was possible: two teams, who meet each other at the end of the preseason and regular season, meet again in the last playoff game of the season. The Pats get busted for cheating in the very first game, and proceed to go undefeated and run up all sorts of records, while becoming the most hated team ever.

And as for the Giants, at 0-2 everyone was calling for Coughlin's head before his team recovered to make the playoffs. Then they go on to beat two of the league's elite QBs (Favre and Romo) to take on the undefeated Pats. And beat Tom Brady as well.

Probably no team will have as great a Super Bowl win as the Giants had, nothing can match the back story. Even Tuna's win over the Bills can't beat this Giants win.

skinink, it's been over two months, and I'm still over the moon about this thing.

Been a Giants fan longer than most Farkers have been alive, by a long shot, and one TFette sent me an email saying , "Sports ecstasy should last a long time, months, at least."

She's right.

Phil Simms is my favorite Giant.

The 1986 team was marvelous and the 1990 team inspirational.

But this team, oh, oh my, what a story, what a saga, what an epic.

Best ending to a season ever.

phartnocker: Millzners: I would add the greatest comeback in NFL history:

2003 Tampa Bay vs. Indianapolis. Tampa is the defending Super Bowl champs and had the best defense in the league (supposedly). 4th quarter Tampa is winning by 21 points with less than 4 minutes to go...

Most people turned the TV off but I was lucky enough to stay tuned out of boredom -- to see the greatest comeback (or meltdown if you want) of NFL history.

Manning scores 21 points in less than 4 minutes, goes into OT, wins.

Biggest meltdown in NFL history, aside maybe from this years's super bowl...


The '92 bills need you to check their stats...

How about this stat:

The bills overcame 32 points in 1 full quarter plus 13:20 left in the third. That's 32 points in 28.3 minutes, or about 1.130 point per minute. Basically a whole half of football, big deal.

The Colts on the other hand scored 21 points in 4 minutes, making it 5.25 points per minute. Now I know that if someone overcomes a 6 point deficit in 1 second that's going to be 360 points per minute, not really my point. My point is given the other circumstances, the colts to me was more impressive.

I stand by my earlier assertion that the 21 point in 4 minutes was the best comeback, because of how little time it was accomplished in.

And the Bills was the largest comeback of all time, not the best. Boooya!

Di Atribe

You can also take solace in the fact that since the Mavs will never make the final with their current lineup again you don't have to worry about the heartbreak of collapse in the future. Dirk is the biggest fraud in the league.

Mavs should ONLY have been on for the Golden State loss. Not that the Miami thing wasn't a choke job, but there are 10 other teams missing from the list then.

1951 Dodgers

On August 11, Brooklyn had held a massive 13½-game lead on the Giants, but the Giants turned around and won their next 16 games. While Brooklyn played the rest of the season at a respectable 26-22 clip, the Giants put together a streak almost unequalled in baseball history, winning 37 of the last 44 games, including the last seven in a row. Only a difficult 14-inning victory over the Philadelphia Phillies on the last day of the regular season enabled the Dodgers to force the best-of-three-games showdown.

Then, Bobby Thompson, shot heard round the world, etc.

/Fark the Giants.
//Fark their 2002 WS meltdown

Anyone can choke. A true virtuoso makes it art.

/over and over and over again

FL8ME: You can also take solace in the fact that since the Mavs will never make the final with their current lineup again you don't have to worry about the heartbreak of collapse in the future. Dirk is the biggest fraud in the league.

Meh, Dirk is considered a choker because Bennett Salvatore called a phantom foul and handed the Heat a title.

If that foul isn't called, no one ever thinks Dirk's a choker.