Throwback Thursday: Tiki Barber on the Giants Lone Super Bowl Loss and the Team's Promising Future

With the 49ers and Chiefs getting ready to do battle this weekend in Super Bowl LIV, former Giants running back Tiki Barber reflects on the Giants' only Super Bowl loss, that in Super Bowl XXXV, and talks about the direction the team is headed under new head coach Joe Judge.

As the San Francisco 49ers prepare to face the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIV this weekend, former Giants running back Tiki Barber, one of the co-founders of The Thuzio Company which helps corporations book professional athletes as speakers, remembered his one chance at attaining Super Bowl immortality as a player.

That opportunity came in 2000 when the Giants won the NFC Championship and a golden ticket to Super Bowl XXXV, where they would face the AFC Champion Baltimore Ravens.

In reflecting over that season, Barber remembered how then head coach Jim Fassel helped to turn the Giants fortunes in the right direction.

“It started with that Lions game when coach Fassel put all his cards on the table after suffering an embarrassing loss,” Barber said via phone. “It allowed us to dial in and come together.”

In that loss to the Lions, Detroit jumped out to a 28-0 lead before ultimately winning 31-21 to hand Big Blue their second straight loss.

Following the loss, Fassel sent a message to his locker room by cutting special teamer Bashir Levingston who fumbled a kickoff return and committed a holding penalty in the game.

He then delivered his famous playoff prediction, guaranteeing that the 7-4 Giants were going to the playoffs.

That bold prediction resonated well within the locker room as the Giants ripped off five straight wins to finish the season and grab the home-field advantage in the NFC playoffs.

As the Giants continued to roll through the playoffs beating the Eagles—then coached by Andy Reid, who will try to win his first Super Bowl championship as a head coach Sunday—and the Vikings in the 41-0 trouncing, the Giants’ confidence as a team increased even more.

“Coach (Sean) Payton (the offensive coordinator) had amazing offensive game plans,” Barber remembered from that season, also crediting a Giants defense led by defensive end Michael Strahan and linebacker Jessie Armstead.

The train, unfortunately, came to a crashing halt against the Ravens, who delivered a 34-7 knockout punch in what was New York’s only Super Bowl loss in five games.

“It was a great test for us until we, unfortunately, ran into the greatest defense of our generation in the Baltimore Ravens,” Barber said.

“That Ravens defense was so physical with guys like Sam Adams, Tony Siragusa, Jamie Sharper, Pete Boulware, and Ray Lewis. You couldn’t push the linemen up into the second level because of those big guys. You couldn’t run up the middle.”

The Ravens defense held Barber and the Giants rushing attack that averaged 125 yards per game during the regular season, to 66 yards on the ground. They also only gave up 11 first downs all night and intercepted quarterback Kerry Collins four-times including a pick-six.

“We found the formula," said Lewis, who like Barber was also in Miami to promote his Ray of Hope Foundation at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood and the Guitar Hotel during Super Bowl week. 

"When you can dominate the game rushing your front four you can control things. Siragusa, Adams, Boulware--it was the perfect defensive formula with playmakers at every level. We used to dare offenses to run the ball on us. Our rule was to beat your man and then go get the ball.”

Besides struggling against the run, the Giants passing game didn't get very far either. Collins had a postseason career-worst 7.1 passer rating as the Giants offense was shutout with their team’s lone score of the game coming from Ron Dixon’s 97-yard kick return for a touchdown.

After that crushing loss, Barber and his teammates would get three more chances at a chance for Super Bowl immortality only to go one-and-done in the Wild Card rounds, losing to the 49ers in 2002, the Panthers in 2005 and the Eagles in 2006.

After the 2006 season, Barber, the franchise’s all-time leading rusher who accumulated 10,449 yards and 55 touchdowns, called it a career at the age of 32, but not before rushing for 137 yards in that final game, a team playoff record at the time.

“For me, it was (my retirement) more physically,” he said. “I started to feel the attrition taking its toll. I wanted to be able to run around with my kids.”

“It also took a lot of work in my final four seasons to stay at 205 pounds while being muscular and stout. I’m naturally 185 pounds, which is what I am now. I wasn’t willing to work for it anymore, and I told myself if my heart wasn’t into doing it anymore, then I was okay with walking away.”

While Barber insists that walking away was the right decision, he also acknowledged that the timing wasn’t great as the next season, the Giants won Super Bowl XLII.

These days, Barber still follows the Giants and is encouraged by what he has seen from the team under Dave Gettleman’s regime and with the hiring of new head coach Joe Judge.

“I think the Giants are definitely headed in the right direction. I don’t know enough about Joe Judge to say what kind of attitude he’s going to bring to the team, but he seems like a no-nonsense and “little things” type of coach,” Barber said.

“You can look at it by asking yourself, ‘Was he successful in his last position?’ The answer is yes, as the Patriots had one of the best special teams’ units for years. (Head) Coach (Bill) Belichick believed so much in him that he also gave him another task to be the wide receivers coach, so that also tells you all you need to know.”

Judge was also said to have met with Belichick weekly to discuss what it took to become a head coach.

“That’s what I love about Coach Belichick because most coaches are worried about losing their guys,” Barber said. “Belichick is always grooming as his legacy goes downstream with his coaching tree too. Being a head coach is daunting. The most important thing is to delegate but carry a presence at the same time.”

Barber also likes the decision to bring in Jason Garrett, a former NFL quarterback and teammate of Barber’s with the Giants during the 2000-03 seasons, as the offensive coordinator.

“You knew Jason Garrett was heading right for the coaching ranks (during his playing days). He was mature beyond his age and is a Princeton guy. He helped Kerry Collins a lot. That’s exactly what (quarterback) Daniel Jones needs.”

As for Gettleman, Barber believes Giants team owners John Mara and Steve Tisch made the right decision in retaining him.

“I think Dave has a multi-year plan,” Barber said. “We know Dave can build a team based on what he did in Carolina. You have to give a guy time until his picks make it to their second contracts.”

“Most people don’t realize, the whole first year of Gettleman’s tenure, they were stripping out all the bad contracts and drafts Jerry Reese brought in. Now they’re finally starting to build the team back up.”

Barber is in Miami this week, the site of Super Bowl LIV, to host the sixth annual Thuzio corporate event Friday, which will feature former 49ers quarterback and Super Bowl MVP Steve Young and current Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald.