Fourth and seventeen. I knew.

Fourth and seventeen. Say that to a Giants fan who was watching in 1986 and watch the memory come right back.

Phil Simms. Bobby Johnson. Twenty-two yards.

I fucking love that game. The play, the finish, what it told me about our quarterback. I knew the Giants were going to win a Super Bowl. That was how it felt to me.

There was still a season to finish, and every step would have to be earned. Something had changed in the way I watched them.

Other teams used to do this.

I grew up watching the Cowboys, Steelers, and Raiders find a way out of games that seemed to be getting away from them. You knew the players. You knew the reputation. You could see the trouble coming even when they were behind.

I had been waiting for the Giants to become that team. I had spent my high-school years defending them and waiting for the next step.

In Minnesota, they were behind 20–19 late in the fourth quarter. Fourth-and-seventeen is supposed to be the part where the other team gets ready to celebrate.

Simms found Johnson beyond the first-down line. The drive lived. Raul Allegre kicked a 33-yard field goal, and the Giants won 22–20.

Now somebody else got to wonder how they had let the Giants do that to them. I could get used to it.

That was my quarterback.

The Super Bowl performance would give everybody the numbers: twenty-two completions in twenty-five attempts. My belief in Phil was already there.

It lived here, too. Seventeen yards needed, the game right there, and Simms getting it to Johnson.

The Giants were becoming the team I had spent years hoping for. This was one of the moments when I could feel it happening. I still can.