Giants' Feagles Gets a Kick Out of It All

Veteran Punter Is Documenting His Unforgettable Week

CHANDLER, Ariz., Jan. 30 -- Deep in the abyss beneath the stadium's stands Tuesday afternoon, New York Giants punter Jeff Feagles encountered a giant rolling container clenched shut with all kinds of mysterious padlocks. Given this is his first Super Bowl, Feagles, 41 and holder of the NFL record for most consecutive games played, had resolved in his mind to notice everything unusual, lest he should miss something significant.

Thus he inquired about the case's contents.

"Would you like this?" he remembered a man asking.

"Well, what's inside?" Feagles replied.

Oh, just the Super Bowl trophy.

Feagles, also being a persuasive man, gifted with a significant amount of boyish charm despite his years, managed to persuade the man to open the box. There, in the murky light of a stadium corridor, wrapped in felt was the Vince Lombardi trophy in all its stainless steel splendor. A pair of white gloves rested on top.

"Did you touch it?" someone asked Feagles on Wednesday as he recounted the tale. For a moment, he looked stricken, as if someone could dare wonder such a thing.

"Oh no," he said. "I got a great picture of it, though."

Lost somewhere in the hysteria of a week gone wild, where a man in a kilt asked Feagles countless questions about his Scottish-born teammate, Lawrence Tynes, there was the joy of a man approaching middle age seeing the Super Bowl through the eyes of a rookie.

Feagles came to the interview room at the resort where the Giants are staying at least 20 minutes early, not to sit at the table with his name on a piece of cardboard, nor to seek whatever airtime he could seize, but rather to look around, to gaze at the spectacle he had long heard about but had come to believe might never happen for him.

His wife and children told him to film everything, so he arrived bearing a digital camera and a video recorder. He held one in each hand, ready to chronicle everything that might occur, no matter how inconsequential, just in case he were to discover the Super Bowl trophy all over again.

The strange thing about this season is that unlike other years, Feagles thought little about the Super Bowl. His Giants got off to a terrible start, losing their first two games and falling behind badly in their third at Washington.