January 25, 1987: The Giants Win Their 1st Super Bowl

January 25, 1987: Super Bowl XXI is played at the Rose Bowl, in the Los Angeles suburb of Pasadena, California.

The AFC Champions were the Denver Broncos. They had never won a Super Bowl, and had lost one, 9 years earlier.

The NFC Champions were the New York Giants. They had never won a Super Bowl, and had never even been in one, although they had won 4 NFL Championships. They had won 3 NFL Championship Games in the pre-Super Bowl era, although they were 0-5 in Championship Games.

But head coach Bill Parcells and general manager George Young had built a very strong team, one that had triumphed over Mike Ditka's Chicago Bears, Bill Walsh's San Francisco 49ers, and Joe Gibbs' Washington Redskins.

Quarterback Phil Simms and running back Joe Morris led the offense, but, as with their "dynasty of one" (winning the title game in 1956, then making 5 of the next 7 and losing them all) what really marked the Giants was their defense: The Big Blue Wrecking Crew had 2 future Hall of Fame linebackers in Lawrence Taylor and Harry Carson, and All-Pros in linemen George Martin, Leonard Marshall and Jim Burt, and linebacker Carl Banks.

Rich Karlis kicked a 48-yard field goal on the Broncos' 1st drive, tying Jan Stenerud's 1970 record for longest Super Bowl field goal. The Giants responded with a 6-yard touchdown pass from Simms to Zeke Mowatt, giving Big Blue the lead. The Broncos came right back, with quarterback John Elway driving them to the Giants' 6-yard line, and then scoring on a draw to make it 10-7 Broncos at the end of the 1st quarter.

In the 2nd quarter, Karlis set a new record for shortest miss on a Super Bowl field goal attempt, 23 yards. On their next drive, the Broncos had the ball on their own 13, and Elway threw to Clarence Kay for a 25-yard gain. But the officials believed Kay hadn't controlled the ball before the tackle, and, for the 1st time, instant replay review was used in a Super Bowl. The replay suggested that the call of incomplete pass was correct.

On the next play, Elway was sacked in the end zone by Martin, costing the Broncos a safety, and making it 10-9 Broncos. That safety was the only scoring of the 2nd quarter, as Karlis missed another field goal later on.

But the 3rd quarter saw the G-Men break the game open. On a 4th down, the Giants pulled a fake punk with backup quarterback Jeff Rutledge (who had quarterbacked the University of Alabama to a National Championship), and converted a 1st down. Simms threw a 13-yard touchdown pass to Mark Bavaro, and the Giants were ahead. A good punt return by Phil McConkey put the Giants in good position for another score, and Raul Allegre's field goal made it 19-10.

Simms was putting together, stats-wise, the finest NFL Championship Game, under any name, any quarterback has ever had, completing 22 out of his 25 passes. He once again drove New York through the Orange Crush defense (although the Broncos were wearing their road white jerseys), until Morris was able to score from 1 yard. The quarter ended 26-10 Giants.

And Simms did it again. He got to the Bronco 6, and threw a pass meant for Bavaro. It bounced off Bavaro's fingers, but McConkey was right there to catch it -- reminiscent of Bob Boone and Pete Rose of the Philadelphia Phillies in the 1980 World Series -- and it was 33-10.

The Broncos got down and kicked a field goal, but the Giants tacked on another touchdown, although Allegre missed the extra point. A 47-yard bomb from Elway to Vance Johnson gave the Broncos their 1st touchdown since very early in the game, but it was little consolation.

As the final seconds of a 39-20 win ticked away, Giants Captain Carson carried out a custom that had begun in the middle of the previous season: Taking the Gatorade bucket, and dumping it over Parcells. In cold weather, as occasionally happed at home at the Meadowlands, all that cold liquid and all those ice cubes were not exactly fun. But in the warmth of an early evening in Pasadena, having won the game of his life, Parcells didn't mind.

Actually, that wasn't the game of Parcells' life. He coached the Giants to another Super Bowl win 4 years later, with his offense controlling the ball for more than 40 minutes. In contrast, the Broncos would lose the next year's Super Bowl, and another one 2 years after that. It would take until Super Bowl XXXII, 11 years to the day after this game, for the team, and Elway, to finally emerge on top of the world.

But, for now, the Giants were World Champions, as were the Mets. It was the 1st time since 1970, when the Mets and the Knicks both were, that 2 teams in the New York Tri-State Area were titleholders at once.

It also broke the traditional fandoms: Fans of one of the older teams in each sport, the Yankees, the Giants, the Knicks and the Rangers, who also tended to be together geographically, in Manhattan and The Bronx, tended to root for the other older teams; while fans of the younger teams, the Mets, the Jets, the Nets and the Islanders, who also tended to be together geographically, in Queens and Long Island, tended to root for the other younger teams.

But with the Giants, the Nets and the Jets having moved to New Jersey (in 1976, 1977 and 1984, respectively), and an outside team, the NHL's Colorado Rockies in 1982, having been moved to New Jersey to become the Devils, geography was less of a factor. And there's always been a front-runner element to Tri-State Area fandom. So we now had a whole lot of fans of both the Mets and the Giants -- when Met fans were previously Jet fans, and Giant fans were previously Yankee fans.

It was actually a pretty good time to be a New York sports fan. The Jets were also in the Playoffs, the Rangers had gotten to the Conference Finals, the Yankees had been in back-to-back Pennant races, the Islanders had been Stanley Cup winners 4 years earlier and were still a Playoff team, the Nets were a Playoff team, the Devils were bad but still had the novelty factor, and the Knicks had the young Patrick Ewing and seemed to have a great future ahead of them.

But, for now, it was all about Big Blue. Mayor Ed Koch, angry that the Giants had moved to New Jersey in 1976, refused to give them a ticker-tape parade. So, instead, their celebration was at Giants Stadium. Koch was out of the country, and so Andrew Stein, President of the City Council, and next in line for Mayor under the law of the time, stood in for him. In spite of his claim that New York City loved New Jersey and that "We're all part of the same region," he got booed by the crowd. I hope Koch at least bought him dinner for taking that bullet for him.

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January 25, 1987 was a Sunday. Obviously, there were no other NFL games played on the day. Baseball was out of season. And the NHL wasn't stupid: They scheduled no games on the day.

The NBA scheduled only one. It was early in the day. And it was a major rivalry. The Boston Celtics beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 111-96 at the Boston Garden. Kevin McHale scored 30 points, Robert Parish 21, Larry Bird 17 and Danny Ainge 1.