Commentary: What’s on the line at the big game?

Super Bowl XLII will settle many debates, like which coach has the most menacing grimace

The 42nd Super Bowl will feature New England against the New York Giants, and it will show us many things.

It will show us whether New England can become the first NFL team to end a season 19-0.

It will show us who can win a grimacing contest between Tom Coughlin and Bill Belichick.

It will show us whether Eli Manning – the younger brother who has finally outshone older sibling Peyton this month – can win the Super Bowl MVP award like Peyton did a season ago for Indianapolis. Eli gets that chance because the Giants pulled off another road upset Sunday, edging Green Bay 23-20 in overtime in an NFC Championship Game that was far more exciting than its AFC counterpart.

The Patriots thought they would have to get through a Manning to win the Super Bowl this season – just not this particular Manning.

This Super Bowl might be a blowout. New England has stormed its way through the season. Even if you don’t like the Patriots – and most people don’t – you have to be a little awed by them.

Even when they don’t play particularly well – and they didn’t Sunday afternoon – the Patriots usually win without too much trouble. Tom Brady threw three interceptions Sunday and the Patriots still cobbled together a 21-12 victory against San Diego.

But let’s remember that New England and the Giants played in the final game of the 2007 regular season, and New England barely escaped, 38-35. Manning began his spectacular run over the past month right there, throwing four TD passes.

Since then, the Giants swept three straight road games in the playoffs – at Tampa Bay, at Dallas and at Green Bay.

New England, now with its four Super Bowl appearances in the past seven years, represents the old guard in this Super Bowl. The Giants are the party’s surprise guest.

New York made it in part because Brett Favre simply didn’t have it Sunday. With chances to win the game in both regulation and overtime, Favre couldn’t get Green Bay going. In overtime, after Green Bay won the coin toss, Favre fired an interception only a minute into the extra period that set up the Giants’ winning field goal.

By then, as much as I enjoy watching Favre work, I was hoping Giants kicker Lawrence Tynes would make one. Tynes had already missed two fourth-quarter field goals, and the pink-cheeked Coughlin looked like he might smash Tynes like an icicle if he missed again.

Tynes didn’t, and in minus-4 degree weather, the Giants beat the Packers.

Arizona will be a lot warmer. Hopefully the game will be just as good as the Giants-Patriots clash a month ago. I don’t think it will. I think the Patriots will win by 11.

But the Giants are used to people not believing in them. If they play as well as they did Sunday in Green Bay, New York might just capture an upset win. And if that happened, it would rank alongside Joe Namath’s “I guarantee it” victory in Super Bowl III as the most improbable ever.