The Giants have far more team speed than the pats do. Brushchi, Seau, Sameuls, Hobbs, were slow against the giants pass offense. Burress was hurt big time, almost didn’t play and he made hobbs look like me in pass coverage on the last td. On offense the pats offensive line is slow. Agains the 86 giants defense they would have given up 10 sacks. I was watching thae Giants-Bronocos superbowl and I’m convinced that the pats would have been blown off the field by the G-Men. And Brady is no john elway. Elway was huge and fast, people forget just how great he was.
Anyway if the giants couldn’t make the playoffs 20 years ago, neither would the pats. Because the giants are the more physical team, and the faster team.
The points you raised in your post are all valid, but you've based this one entirely on the performance of these two teams in one game. Over the course of the entire season the Giants looked like an average team at best (even some of their victories were awful), and if Samuels had been able to intercept that Manning pass on the Giants' final drive we probably wouldn't be having this conversation (the Giants would have been a team that tried valiently and did well to get to the Super Bowl, but lost a close game).
I agree with your point about Elway, BTW. Oddly enough, his Broncos got trounced back in the days when he was a Hall of Fame caliber player . . . then won two Super Bowls when he was way past his prime and wasn't even a major factor in their victories. The teams of the 1990s had several things that those teams of the 1980s really lacked: a great running game, a great defensive unit, and a solid, cohesive offensive line.