The Red Zone Report | Red Zone Rewind: Super Bowl Edition.

NFL

Red Zone Rewind: Super Bowl Edition.

By Eddie Griffin ⋅ January 28, 2008 ⋅ Subscribe to The Red Zone Report

Our Super Bowl week coverage kicks off with a Super-sized edition of the Red Zone Rewind. Will we see a Manning repeat on Sunday?

Hey, You Look Familiar: The Giants and Patriots met in Week 16, and the G-Men went up 28-16 in the third before the Patriots did what the Patriots do, and came back to win 38-35 to cap off their unbeaten regular season.

So, if you’re not a fan of repeat matchups, then this isn’t the game for you, unfortunately.

This is the 12th time in Super Bowl history that the two participants have played each other in the Super Bowl.

And, from going on past history, you’ve got to fancy the Giants’ chances of pulling it off, as teams who have lost the regular-season matchup have gotten the last laugh six of 11 times, including four out of the last five.

Out of all of the matchups, however, this is only the second one where the teams played each other in the last week of the regular season, then met up in the Super Bowl. The only other time was in 1977, when Dallas beat Denver 14-6 in Week 14 (last year of the 14-game schedule), and then followed it up by beating Denver 27-10. So, a point to New England there.

1977: Dallas vs. Denver - 14-6 Cowboys in Week 14, 27-10 Cowboys in Super Bowl
1980: Oakland vs. Philly - 10-7 Eagles in Week 12, 27-10 Raiders in Super Bowl
1981: San Francisco vs. Cincy - 21-3 49ers in Week 14, 26-21 49ers in Super Bowl
1983: L.A. Raiders vs. Washington - 37-35 Redskins in Week 5, 38-9 Raiders in Super Bowl
1985: Chicago vs. New England - 20-7 Bears in Week 2, 46-10 Bears in Super Bowl
1986: New York vs. Denver - 19-16 Giants in Week 12, 39-20 Giants in Super Bowl
1990: New York vs. Buffalo - 17-13 Bills in Week 15, 20-19 Giants in Super Bowl
1993: Dallas vs. Buffalo - 13-10 Bills in Week 2, 30-13 Cowboys in Super Bowl
1994: San Francisco vs. San Diego - 38-15 49ers in Week 15, 49-26 49ers in Super Bowl
1999: St. Louis vs. Tennessee - 24-17 Titans in Week 8, 23-16 Rams in Super Bowl
2001: New England vs. St. Louis - 24-17 Rams in Week 10, 20-17 Patriots in Super Bowl

Battle of the Easts: This marks the 10th time that teams from the AFC East and NFC East have matched up in the Super Bowl, and if the Giants are looking for another positive historical sign, here’s another one, as the NFC East owns a 6-3 edge.

The first one was the first year of the new NFL, in 1970, after the AFL-NFL merger. The Baltimore (now Indianapolis) Colts beat Dallas 16-13 on a last-second field goal by Jim O’Brien in a turnover-filled Super Bowl V.

Four of the matchups have involved the Buffalo Bills, who lost to the Giants, then the Redskins, then the Cowboys twice, from 1990-93, and two of the matchups were between Washington and Miami.

Miami won the first one of those, to cap off their 17-0 1972 season (point for New England), and Washington won the other a decade later.

The last time the AFC East and NFC East tangled in the title game was in 2004, when the Patriots beat the Eagles 24-21 in a game that likely still haunts Freddie Mitchell’s dreams.

Third Time’s the Charm for Coughlin: Tom Coughlin, the man with nine lives that he is, is finally in the Super Bowl after coming up short in the conference championship game twice before before, both with the Jaguars.

In 1999, the Jaguars went into the playoffs with the NFL’s best record at 14-2, and looked like the team to beat after annihilating the Dolphins 62-7 in the divisional round (Dan Marino’s final game). But, division rival Tennessee went into enemy territory and won 33-14.

The other appearance was in 1996, against mentor Bill Parcells and the Patriots, with New England winning 20-6 at home.

Hey, You Look Familiar, Part 2: Bill Parcells has nurtured the coaching careers of quite a few people, and Coughlin and Bill Belichick are two of his former assistants who’ve gone on to head-coaching jobs in the NFL.

While Coughlin hasn’t won a Super Bowl as a head coach, he won one in his last season as wide receivers coach under Parcells in New York, when Scott Norwood’s last-second field goal miss gave the Giants a 20-19 win over Buffalo in Super Bowl XXV.

The defensive coordinator on that team was Belichick, and that would be their last game together with the Giants, as the whole gang broke up and went their separate ways.

Parcells retired for the first time, Belichick became the coach of the old Cleveland Browns for five seasons until he was reunited with Parcells in New England in 1996, and Coughlin became the head coach at Boston College, where he spent the next three years and led the Eagles to an upset of #1 Notre Dame (cue Dana Jacobson) in 1993. The quarterback on that team was Glenn Foley, and he went on to play for the Jets from 1994-98, with Parcells as his coach those last two seasons.

Six degrees of Bill Parcells? Indeed.