It’s wonderfully ironic that in this Year of the Quarterback that the Giants and the 49’ers dispatched the Packers and Saints by *gasp* playing solid defense.  Now the two cross-country rivals play one another.

I can’t begin to express the excitement and memories that this match up generates.  I grew up during the late 80’s and early 90’s when both teams were in their prime.  Their almost yearly battles during that time were the stuff of legend.  You see Giants-49’ers was more than a rivalry between football teams; it was a battle between playing styles, geographic regions and cultural attitudes.  The 49’ers were the epitome of the West Cost Offense high powered team driven by brilliant quarterback play.  The team boasted Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Roger Craig and countless other all Pro players.  They won pretty and they ran up the score.

The Giants, on the other hand, were the prototypical old school ground and pound team.  Bill Parcells, the defensive mastermind and strict disciplinarian has had a greater impact on the modern game than perhaps any coach in NFL history.  Coaching greats like Bill Belichick and Tom Coughlin were Parcells proteges.  The Giants ran on defense and the leader of that defense was Lawrence Taylor.  I think that only Ray Lewis rivals the combination of speed, power and intimidation that LT possessed.  Taylor revolutionized the linebacker position.  He was a beast, doing cocaine from a primatene inhaler on the sideline.  He single-handedly disrupted offenses.  He hurt people, even ended careers.

The meeting of these two teams was literally the collision of the unstoppable force and the immovable object.  Sometimes one team was better, and usually that was the 49’ers.  In 1987 the Giants beat the 49’ers 49-3 in the divisional round.  In 1993 the 49’ers crushed the Giants 44-3.  However, more often the two were perfectly matched.

You see I believed, and I still do, that the Giants of old were the only team in Football that scare the 49’ers.  The Giants were the only team that could keep Montana under 20 points and make him try to win a street fight.  Twice they knocked the Hall of Fame Quarterback out of a playoff game with monstrous sacks.

The high point of the old rivalry for me was the 1990-91 season.  America was on the verge of the Gulf War while the Cold War was still a season away from being over.  That season the Giants split a two-game regular season/playoff series.  Between the two games the Giants score 18 points, all on field goals.  In the first game on December 3, 1990 both teams were 10-1 in a Monday Night game at Candlestick.  The 49’ers won a grueling 7-3 defensive battle.  After that, everyone expected the two-time champs to complete the NFL’s first Super Bowl three-peat.    However in the NFC championship the Giants knocked out Montana, forced a fumble with two minutes to go and kicked the game winner with 4 seconds left: final score 15-13.  The Giants would go on to win their second Super Bowl against Buffalo.

The rivalry has not been been the same since.  Both teams have met in the playoffs since but on neither occasion was either team at the top of its game.  The 49’ers were also pretty much a joke throughout the 2000’s.  This year, however, with a new coach and one of the stingiest defenses in football, the 49’ers amassed a 13-3 record.  They beat the Giants earlier in the year, 27-20.  The Giants dominated time of possession but made too many mistakes.

The 49’ers presence in the NFC title game is only a mild surprise.  They were, after all, the two seed in the NFC.  Their victory over the Saints was definitely an upset but then again the Saints are not the same team outside of the Super Dome and the 49’ers took advantage of their home field.  The Giants, on the other hand, are not supposed to be here.  On Christmas Eve I tuned in with my wife and her family to watch the Giants play the Jets with their season on the line.  They were 7-7 (less than a month ago).  They haven’t lost since, beating the Cowboys for the division title in week 17 and then surprisingly dominating the Falcons and the 15-1 Packers.

Sunday’s game does not mean the same thing that it once did.  The two teams actually resemble each other far more than they are foils.  The Giant’s quarterback is the more accomplished and talented of the pair.  Still, with a Super Bowl berth on the line and decades of spirited rivalry behind them, this game raises hackles on the back of my neck in a way that few games have in the 21 years since Matt Bahr kicked that game winner and my brother and I jumped up and down on my parents’ water bed screaming our heads off.