Congrats to my New York Giants, and the New England Patriots for winning their Championship games. Now on to the Super Bowl and a 2007 rematch.. Should be a great game.

And hoping for the same result...Giants to win.

I remember reading an article somewhere that said that whichever team beat the Atlanta Falcons in the playoffs has gone on to reach the super bowl and lose there. Is this true and if so, how often has this happened?

Not true, it has happened 3 times in total, in something like 10 Falcons play-off seasons

Thanks, Dizart...would have been pretty eerie if it happened every time

I just watched both teams run onto the ground, and there were hundreds of them! How many players on a team?

They just had the coin toss ceremony and the umpire called for the captains. There were about eight of them per side. Do they all have different roles?

There are 53 players that suit up on each side, for a total of 106. You also have all the coaching staff on each side, but I don't know an exact number.

The captain thing, I'm not as sure on, but each captain will have a large patch with a big "C" on them. There are four stars underneath the "C" and some may be the same color as the "C," while other stars aren't.

Six minutes in, and 54 to go, and there's no score.

You are kidding, right? 53 players in a team??????? Any other sport has more players taking part?

BTW, Congrats to the Giants team and their fans! At least this proves to me that Dizart was right

Here's a typical depth chart.

http://www.nfl.com/teams/depthchart?team=NYG

53 players allows for about 2 players per position, with the option to have more at certain ones like wide receiver, running back, tight end, and defensive backs. When you get into talking about special packages and specialty players, 53 isn't a whole lot and it's common for at least a couple of injuries per game per team.

That was a snoozefest! 4-Down football - wake me up if they make 3 yards.

I thought it was a great game and the right team won.

I enjoyed the game. Superbowls that are blowouts aren't nearly as fun to watch although towards the end my heart did race a bit. Congrats to the Giants for a well played game.

At any given time, unless a flag is thrown, there are only 11 on each side actually on the field. Both sides were called for 12 men on the field penalties, which are only 5 yards.

I thought the winners of two conferences played in the Superbowl. The close location of New England to New York I would have thought they were in the same conference. I also may have it all completely wrong.

It is hard for me to be critical of the size of the gridiron squads when we have a game (cricket) that goes for 5 days and often ends in a draw.

The Jets and Patriots are in the same conference. The Giants are in the other conference. You are correct in stating that each conference champion plays in the Super Bowl. The American Football Conference (AFC) sent New England, and the National Football Conference (NFC) sent the Giants.

I don't know why the Cowboys are in the same division as the Giants, Eagles, and Redskins, who are all along the coast, while Dallas is in the center of the USA...and much further south than even Washington, DC. It would make more sense to have the Falcons or Buccaneers in with those three teams, and the Cowboys with the other NFC South teams.

Edit to add: here is a list of teams in their respective divisions, made up of four teams to each division, and sixteen in each conference. The red teams are the AFC, and the blue are the NFC.

The Indianapolis Colts used to be in Baltimore and in the same division as NY Jets, Patriots, Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins. Then Baltimore up and moved to Indianapolis and th emid-west of the country It took about fifteen years for re-alignment to catch up and put Indiana in a different division. A simi;ar mix-up of teams/locations occurs on baseball where some old teams moved west and then new franchises were added all over the country and the allignment has yet to be made sensible. You might think rivalries might have an impact but consider Boston in baseball. There used to be the Red Sox and the Braves in that same city but since they were in different leagues (or conferences) they never played each other so no rivalry existed. The Braves moved to Milwaukee and then Atlanta. Hockey and basketball have similar stories to be told.

And what a game that was. I can only remember one other game where the coach used the strategy of letting the other team score (which was an inevitible outcome) so his could get the possession back with more time on the clock to work with. The coach? The same Bill Belicheck as in this game. The strategy worked last time but not this. It was exciting.