I feel like I’ve been kicked in the throat by Chuck Norris.

I’ve been left lying on the ground struggling for air. I never even saw the kick coming, and now I’m left here spitting up blood and wondering what the hell just happened.

Eli Manning and the New York Football Giants are Super Bowl champions, and my beloved New England Patriots are 18-1.

18 and 1.That sequence of numbers just keeps echoing in my head like an eerie chant reminiscent of something out of an Edgar Allen Poe novel.

This wasn’t the way it was supposed to end. Tom Brady was supposed to strut out into the setting Phoenix sun, Lombardi Trophy hoisted high over his head as his New England Patriots cemented their spot in NFL history.

Instead, he sat downtrodden and defeated on the field, his team cementing their spot with the 1986 Boston Red Sox and the 2007 Dallas Mavericks in the history of teams that should have been, but never could be.

The reason for defeat is simple: the Giants were David, the Patriots were Goliath, and neither the Patriots nor their fans saw the rock coming from David’s slingshot (that third-and-they’ve got him, they’ve got him, he got away play) until it was all but over.

And now, here I sit, a Patriots fan that is finally learning exactly what’s meant by “the bigger they are, the harder they fall.”

I feel sick. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat. I have nightmares in which Michael Strahan is standing over Tom Brady throwing water balloons at him, and all Brady can do is sit there with his head down, wondering why this is happening to him.

Sometimes in the dreams I’m in Tom Brady’s position, and instead of water balloons it's footballs. And Eli Manning is rocketing them at my face as Tom Coughlin, Archie Manning and big brother Peyton stand behind him cackling.

Sometimes Kevin Garnett appears and steps in front of the passes to save me, but usually I just wake up in a sweat, wondering if it’s all somehow my fault for not going back home to watch the Super Bowl (where I watched the first two Patriots playoff games).

There’s no denying it though, the New York Giants are Super Bowl champions. They deserve to be. They outplayed Bill Belichick and his Patriots, knocking Tom Brady around all game and stopping the most prolific offense in NFL history.

So, congratulations to the Giants and their fans. In the end, they were the better team, winning the game that counted and rising to the occasion. Giants fans deserve this win as much as anyone, as do the players who gave all they had on Sunday and took down Goliath.

I have but one request, and it is addressed to Giants fans. Please, in your celebrating, have mercy on the Patriots fans you know, because as happy as you may be in your team’s victory, they are 10 times more depressed in the Patriot’s defeat. They have to deal with the fact that their team will never be considered one of the greatest to ever grace the gridiron (and deservedly so, they didn’t win the game that counted) despite that fact that they put up one of the most amazing single season performances the NFL has ever seen.

So congratulations to the Giants and their fans. And to Coach Belichick, I’ll see you at our next group therapy meeting. We just have to keep telling ourselves, it’s not our fault.

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