During the Giants' playoff run, there were 10 fumbles (not counting the one nullified by the Pats' penalty). 3 Giant fumbles and 7 opponent fumbles. Creating fumbles is a skill; recovering them, as statisticians will tell you, is essentially a 50/50 proposition. You can be in perfect position to recover it but, because of the shape of the ball, it could bounce totally away from you. So getting a fumble is mostly luck. Anyway, of these 10 fumbles, the Giants recovered *8* of them. All of them in the Super Bowl. Any one of them goes the other way and it's almost certainly the ballgame.
In the two Super Bowls between the two teams, there were 5 fumbles (4 by the Giants, 1 by the Patriots), and *ALL FIVE* were recovered by the Giants.
In the last 3 games between the two teams, there have been 9 fumbles (6 by NY, 3 by NE), and *8* of the 9 were recovered by the Giants. Again, forcing fumbles is a skill (and NE forced more Giant fumbles than NY forced Patriot fumbles). Recovering them is mostly luck, and those numbers I just cited are so far out of whack with what is statistically normal it boggles the mind.
Yes, we can talk about all kinds of things, but in many ways, the difference between these two evenly-matched teams comes down to the weird bounce of an oblong football.
And, frankly, that's a bit harder for me to take than if NY was simply better.