United States Action Football League

The 2012 USAFL Super Bowl match up brought the Oakland Raiders in from the west coast to meet the east coast New York Giants. The game was played at Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil stadium.

The Raiders won the coin toss and took to opening possession of the game 80 yards in just six plays ending when Tom Brady found Dwayne Bowe down the middle for a 38 yard TD pass.

The Giants answered right back with a beautiful 14 play drive capped off by a Felix Jones two yard blast through the left side of the line. The drive consumed 6:41 and was constructed of no plays longer than 9 yards and a 4th down and 1 conversion from the Giant’s own 37 yard line!

Unfortunately, the Giants spirits are dampened when they see their leading receiver, Hakeem Nicks, taken to the locker room on a cart. MicheleTafoya confirms, after a strange Clint Eastwood car commercial with no cars in it, that Nicks is out for the game.

Oakland takes the ensuing possession down to New York’s 11 yard line, but the drive stalls. Janikowski boots the ball through the uprights, but Deuce Lutui is called for holding and then the second try, now from 41 yards, is hooked to the right badly. The score remains tied up at 7.

The Giants are energized. They start their next drive with a 16 yard Felix Jones romp and march down the field to take a 14 – 7 lead on a 3 yard Donald Brown pitch to the right side. This drive did have a big play when Visanthe Shiancoe took a dump off from Josh Freeman 21 yards to the Oakland 2 yard line.

After grabbing their first lead of the game, steamboat gambler Coach English calls for a surprise onside kick, but Oakland reserve guard Darren Colledge falls on the ball and the Raiders start from the Giant 44 yard line. On the first play Brady connects with double covered Bowe for 26 yards. Four plays later McFadden cuts through the left side from 6 yards out to tie the game at 14.

New York is forced to punt away their next possession. Oakland takes the last possession of the first half to the Giant 10 yard line as the clock winds down. Confusion reigns on Oakland’s sideline and with only 3 seconds left, they throw a slant pass to Bowe who gets tackled inches from the end zone as time expires! The teams go to the locker room tied at 14.

The Giants are forced into the first three and out of the game to start the second half. Brady uses the good field position and eight plays later finds Bowe for his second score of the game on a 22 yard out pattern to take a 21 – 14 lead.

After a Giant turnover on a Chris Long sack and Freeman fumble, Oakland can’t move the ball. The result is Janikowski missing a 52 yard field goal attempt.

New York is the next to score on a 34 yard Bironas field goal to cut the lead to 21 – 17. This drive started with runs of 12 and 35 by Jones and Brown, but then stalled after a false start by Snee and three incompletions by Freeman.

Both team’s defenses dig and force 4 punts on the next 4 possessions. Oakland breaks the scoring drought on a 54 yard Janikowski bomb the builds the Oakland lead to seven, at 24 -17, with six minutes left in the game.

Young Josh Freeman struggles against the Oakland secondary as time gets tight and gets picked off twice. The first of these, by the aging Ed Reed, results in a 32 yard Janikowski field goal that seals New York’s fate at 27 -17.

Tom Brady is named MVP after completing 22 of 33 passes for 310 yards with 2 TDs and no interceptions. Bowe catches 7 passes for 120 yards in support.

It needs to be said that Coach English is an asset to our league representing the Giants, as well as the Dallas Technology Center, in fine gentlemen-like fashion. In the end I think Oakland’s personnel was just was too strong for the G-Men, especially after Nicks went down.

Maybe Greg finds a small bit of solace in the fact that the DTC's preseason prediction was Oakland taking home the Lombardi trophy. Well… maybe not.