Addition by subtraction

By John McMullen
The Phanatic Magazine

Addition by subtraction is usually a myth but not in North Jersey...Not today.

By nature, sports favors the talented and let's be honest, a New York Giants team with Tiki Barber and Jeremy Shockey is far more "talented" than the club that took the field against the New England Patriots on Sunday night in Glendale.

That said, few can argue Big Blue would be Super Bowl champions today if Barber and Shockey were still roaming the sidelines.

Barber did the Giants a huge favor by walking away after the 2006 season and Shockey did them another solid by breaking his leg in December.

Coincidently, New York took off and never looked back. Eli Manning finally resembled an NFL quarterback in the Giants' playoff run and you can't underestimate the absence of his two mouthiest playmakers in making that happen.

There was no Barber in the locker room undermining Manning an every turn and no Shockey there to call for the ball and berate his quarterback when he didn't get it.

Even the most obturse were starting to figure out that the narcisstic Barber and me-first Shockey were cancers, and neither liked the little self-affirmation exercises that had to go through with criticism mounting.

"I'm Public Enemy No. 1 if you're with the Giants," Barber recently told The Bergen Record's Ian O'Connor. "With every heroic story there has to be a foil, and I'm convenient for that. I am the (expletive) foil in a Shakespearean play."

Shockey went a different route and disappeared while sulking.

Both "stars" watched Manning take home the MVP award and a Cadiallac Escalade at the end of Super Bowl XLII. Both watched Michael Strahan, Osi Umenyiora and Justin Tuck make Tom Brady's life miserable and end the Patriots' run at perfection.

And it had to hurt.

Tiki was probably spooning with Peter King, trying to convince his personal mouthpiece that "he didn't care," while Shockey was in a luxury box far away from his teammates drowning his sorrows in gin.

But, both missed a chance to take what they most want -- credit. You see, the true MVPs of the Super Bowl were nowhere near the postgame platform and the Vince Lombardi Trophy.

By disappearing, Barber and Shockey did more to help the Giants this year than anyone wearing blue in Super Bowl XLII.