John Delach

The Giants 2008 Improbable Playoff Season

John Delach

November 2025

I’m wired and up at 6 a.m. Damn, I couldn’t find my glasses so I made enough noise to torture my son so that he stirred to find them. “I’ll get you coffee,” was the extent of my apology. That’s how wired I was. Fortunately, Mike knew the wreck he was dealing with.

I made my way down to the Best Western’s continental breakfast for coffee, juice and yogurt. Dave, Jamie, Justine and our van guy, Gordon were there. Gordon came early, very nervous, to explain that the van was not available, but he would replace it with two Ford Excursions.  I listened as he told Jamie that he couldn’t afford to lose this booking. Jamie replied, “It’s not a problem.”

After he left, I said to Jamie, “Having two vehicles could have been a problem. Last night while waiting for Steve, I spoke to some Giant fans from New England sitting at the bar. They were so cool and brave that I offered them one of our two passes, but, fortunately, they already had one.”

Steve picked up our BBQ at 8:00. Steve told us, “They did a great job. The manager didn’t like the way the original batch of chicken looked. It was too soggy so he had the cook make another batch.”

Gordon and his step-son, Frank arrived promptly at 8:30. We divided the food and the Styrofoam coolers now filled with beer, water and soda, between the two Fords, boarded and headed out on I-10 toward Phoenix and the place where our tickets were supposed to be.

The subject came up on the ride, “Why is this stadium where the Cardinals play named after The University of Phoenix, a college that is essentially a correspondence school? They don’t have a football team, hell, they don’t have a campus?”

The answer: “They’re big enough to buy the naming rights.”

 Traffic was light, but frequent Highway Patrol officers in their sexy cruisers some-what maintained traffic at the 75 MPH speed limit. Not too far north of Marano, I spotted the tails of a flock of medium and large size commercial aircraft parked in the distance off to our left. Gordon told us it was the Picato Aircraft Park, an airline graveyard. From the distance, I could make out the distinctive shapes of 747s and DC-10s among the many airplanes stored there.

We learned that he had lived in California and Hawaii before Arizona. “I took a job with a maintenance company in Hawaii. The day after I started, the cops arrived to arrest the owner on an old involuntary manslaughter charge. He went to jail and I got the company.”

Both Gordon and Frank looked like they had many stories they could tell us; stories that we were better off not knowing.

I had the directions to the Comfort Suites mapped out. About a half-hour out, I called Doctor Mike and told him that we’d be there by 10:30. He caught a cab to the hotel while his two traveling companions, Ahab and a doctor colleague, Fred continued to the stadium after dropping Doctor Mike off. We skirted Phoenix and turned north on I-17. As we neared Exit 208, I turned to Dave, “Well, it’s show time. We’ll know in less than ten-minutes if we were good or if we’ll have to find a bar to watch the game.”

Doctor Mike met us in the lobby. He had the cell phone number for John from TicketRESERVE. I called, John appeared, Dave and I produced photo IDs, signed his receipt and he handed us two envelopes each containing two Super Bowl XLII tickets.

We had them! We actually had the tickets in hand. Our prolonged leap of faith was almost over.

The stadium was about ten miles away on local streets. Despite becoming separated as we got close, after some detours, curses and moans; we were able to reassemble in the parking lot by 11:30. Thank the Lord for cell phones.

The stadium was about a mile from where we parked. Between it and us were a movie theatre complex, a pedestrian shopping mall and a Renaissance Hotel. The weather was cool and cloudy, but the predicted showers never arrived.

I called Mary Ann and my daughter Beth to tell them that we had the tickets in hand. I do believe they were as relieved as I was. God bless them both for putting up with me, my anxieties and my foolish journey.

Doctor Mike called Ahab who joined us at our tailgate.

The parking lot tom-toms let us know early on that we were in violation of the parking lot rules. These rules basically held that you had to quickly vacate your vehicle and go to the food court or someplace else. Tailgating was not allowed. The NFL and their sponsors wanted exclusive access to our need for food and beer.

A damn nice sheriff was our first encounter with the folks hired on to be the tailgating patrol. He was as nice as nice could be. He told us to keep beer inside the vehicles and pour it into non-see-through containers. Of course, we didn’t have any non-see-through containers. Dave and Tim volunteered to find containers as they set off for the mall.

We received another security staff admonition and a warning from another tailgating group that some prick threatened to arrest them. We started debating whether or not to shut down the tailgate when Dave and Tim reappeared with ten plastic insulated coffee cups. Case closed, we were staying. Later, another search team came by and asked when we were vacating the SUVs? One of our lads held up his cup and replied, “As soon as we finish our coffee.”

God, that’s why I love this group of guys!

Tim asked me, “Where’s Michael.”

“I think he went to take a leak.”

“Okay, but look what I bought for him.”

Tim produced a large steel bottle opener with the SB XLII Logo on it, the date and location. My son collects bottle openers using both legal and illegal means. “Tim, this is great. It’s the ultimate opener you could give to him.”

When Michael returned, Tim offered it to him. “Hey, now,” Michael exclaimed, “That’s the king of my collection. How much do I owe you?”

Tim replied, “Nothing, it’s a gift.”

“Hey, now, this is really neat. Thank you, a bunch, man.” Mike replied as he hugged Tim.

Encounters with Patriot fans were few and far between. We did have a moment when three young men in New England jerseys walked close to us. They had fixed oval stickers to their jerseys that proclaimed: 19-0.

 “A little premature, boys…you could be jinxing your team as you’re screwing with the football gods,” were a few of the more civilized comments they received. By now, even though the tailgate police had disappeared into the afternoon, it was time to close down the tailgate and venture into the stadium.

Here was my message. The one my mates were sick and tired of hearing:

Nobody, I mean NOBODY thinks that our team has any chance of winning this game. But still, the Giants are going into harm’s way. You never have the chance to engage the enemy with the navy you want. You must engage the enemy with the navy you have. So, like Spruance at Midway and Halsey at Guadalcanal, let’s be prepared to take the lumps we have to take to win.

I heard a Hall of Fame player being interviewed last week on either WFAN or ESPN. When asked who would win, he said: ”I’m an AFC man. I played my entire career in the AFC. I was a member of four Super Bowl teams in the AFC. But this Giant team has something special. They have this thing I call IT. I believe this Giant team is going to win this football game.

 That player was Mean Joe Green. Go Giants!