NEWSWEEK Contributor Robert Cox files this report from the Super Bowl:
 

...I will be totally stoked to be in Arizona for the big game.

Early tomorrow morning I board a plane bound for Sky Harbor Airport and a week of fun and sun in the Grand Canyon State where Tom Brady and his juggernaut New England Patriots offense is expected to smash open another gaping hole--this one in the New York Giants secondary. We’ll see. The Giants are on a roll, playing like the old Parcells teams over the past month, and if they gave a darn about meeting expectations their season would have ended in Florida three weeks ago.

I have to admit that last summer, when I accepted an invitation to attend the Super Bowl, it never occurred to me as a lifelong Giants fan that my team would actually be playing in the game. So it was with absolute and unmitigated joy that I watched spellbound as yet another Lawrence Tynes field goal try first sailed aimlessly into the frigid Wisconsin night and then just as quickly righted itself and veered towards the center of the uprights, sending the Giants on one more miraculous road trip.

Still I’m worried. All throughout their improbable play-off run, the Giants have been like my guilty little secret. Now the secret is out: The Giants are a very good football team.  No one among the legion of football analysts and talking heads on the cable sports networks gave the Giants the slightest chance to win the NFC Championship. Even the most loyal of Giants fans would be lying if they told you they expected the Giants to be playing this weekend. They were picked to lose in Tampa Bay, lose in Dallas and lose in Green Bay. At each stop I’ve wondered, “Could it be that the Giants could somehow put together a streak and be there when I get to Glendale?”--and then pushed that thought right out of my mind as being utterly absurd. And yet, here we are.

The cherry on top was being offered the opportunity to contribute to Mark Starr’s blog over the next few days here at Newsweek.com. As the President of the Media Bloggers Association, I've been working with the folks at Newsweek for several months developing The Ruckus, a political blog covering the Presidential campaign.  Since I was going anyway, I offered to contribute to Newsweek.com's coverage of the big game and to my great pleasure they agreed. Mark is an experienced reporter who has been covering major sporting events for years so I am not even going to pretend I am “covering” the Super Bowl the way a guy like Mark can. What I can do is share my experiences with the overall spectacle of the Super Bowl from a fan’s perspective. I am going to do my best to get around town, attend various events, talk to fans and--if possible--current and former players as well as some of the other myriad celebrities and overall interesting folks who attend an event like the Super Bowl.

This will be my fourth--and third with the Giants. I was at Pasadena when the Giants won their first championship behind Phil Simms. I was in San Diego when John Elway led the Broncos in a huge upset over Brett Favre’s Packers. And, sadly, I was in Tampa when the Giants had their heads handed to them by Ray Lewis and the Baltimore Ravens. At those Super Bowls I met people like Warren Moon, Marv Levy, Chris Berman, Marty Schottenheimer, Chris O’Donnell (the actor), Denny Hastert (the then-Speaker of the House), John Fox, Sean Peyton, Bart Starr, Lester Hayes, Merlin Olson, Daryl Strawberry and many others. There are so many interesting people at this game that it is less like a sporting event and more like some psychedelic "happening" from the Summer of Love - even some of the bands performing are the same.

You just never know who you are going to bump into during a week like this and I plan on being ready so I’ve got my Nikon D-80 camera, my Apple Powerbook, iPhone and a letter from Newsweek saying I really am covering the Super Bowl for them. Cool!

More importantly, I’ve got my official NFC Champions Locker Room Hat, my Giants flag for the car and, since it can get cold at night in the desert, my blue and red Giants flannel pajamas which always bring good luck for the G-Men.  Next stop, Phoenix baby! Super Bowl XLII here I come.