We said it all week — if the Giants can beat the 18-0 Pats after telling the 18-0 Pats that they were going to beat them, it will be time to re-think the entire Lou Holtz poor-mouth approach to pre-game commentary regarding an opponent.

For the modern athlete, at every level, the Giants’ ability to turn their boasts into the biggest upset in Super Bowl history (after sleeping on it, we’re now convinced that this one was even bigger than Super Bowl III), it just might be that the benefits of bravado outweigh the burden of giving the opponents some bulletin board material.

In this case, it started with Osi Umenyiora and continued with co-owner Steve Tisch and then peaked last week with Plaxico Burress, who predicted a 23-17 win, and Michael Strahan claiming that history will be made.

Then again, the Giants were helped tremendously by the report in the New York Post that the Patriots had applied for trademarks on two variations of the phrase 19-0.  That single incident of institutional audacity (and stupidity) surely helped get the Giants’ juices flowing, allowing them to pull off what Emmitt Smith might call a “Samson and Goliath” outcome.

So kudos to the Giants for paying homage to Babe Ruth by calling their shot and delivering.  It was amazing to watch.

By the way, the third down play by Eli Manning, who looked like a guy who wore number 10 for the Giants (and Vikings) a long time ago and David Tyree, who hauled in a 32-yard pass by pinning it against his helmet while Rodney Harrison was pulling him to the ground, was in our view the biggest single play in Super Bowl history.  It was a thing of beauty; we’ve watched it a dozen times already.  More amazing than anything else is that, while the FOX announcers kind of marveled at the thing, they failed to recognize its obvious historical significance, if the Giants were to win the game.