"Don't feel entitled to anything you didn't sweat and struggle for." -Marian Wright Edelman

In the days leading up to the Big Game, Giants.com accidentally put up a page claiming victory, displaying everything from Superbowl Merchandise for sale to the Lombardi trophy.  The question is how does this affect the game itself?

Posters of the site in the Patriots lockerroom and pregame F---Them!!! speeches aside, is it better to have such a strong belief and staking claim to a goal already achieved?  Or is it better to have all the attention diverted to the guys that are supposed to win and prepare for and come into the game with a chip on your shoulder?  

I'm comparing two psychological ideas here: the self-fulfilling prophecy and the sense of entitlement, the latter a somewhat new concept being explored.

So as not to bore all the internet ADD people out there, the  self fulfilling prophecy phenomenon says that telling people something inflences their behavior towards a direction.  For example, an experiment performed where teachers were told which students were "high performers" resulted in this 20 percent smarties to improve their IQ's drastically over the rest of the students.  The problem is, the 20 percent smart students were randomly selected.  A look back on the experiment saw that the teachers paid more attention to supposed smart kids.  Powerful right?

Before you go telling your kids that they're going to be the next Michael Jordan or walking around claiming you're going to win the lottery (ok, second one doesn't really apply), realize that the self fulfilling prophecy doesn't work that way if you're talking about using ir on yourself or someone around you.  You have to SIMPLIFY.  This ain't a Jedi mind trick.  

Using this idea for personal gain is no more than setting small goals, like telling yourself that you're going to stash a buck a day into a piggy bank instead of "save money" or you'll actually read 5 pages of a book a day instead of "I will read `War and Peace'".  The how has to be simple and immediately visible.  

Unless you're talking about influencing the unknowing...like those teachers.  

The Giants and Patriots know what they're up against.  They know each other too well in fact, having played in 2007 and this year in Foxborough.   The Giants came out on top in that one.  They were underdogs then, in 2007, and in 2011's Superbowl.  Many don't believe they should be though.

Here's the other problem with claiming victory before it happens, although I really shouldn't have to explain this.  I could just point you to Rex Ryan clips...

There's something wrong witih saying something is yours before you EARN IT.  It's as if you don't have to earn it.  You did something and hell, the prize should be dropped in your lap right?  Eagles anyone?  

That's what we call a sense of entitlement.  Something should be yours because...well for so many reasons.  The problem is when you think something already belongs to you is you forget there are still steps to the journey.  There's still effort to be made.  In football, there's still preparation, mental, phsycial, strategic.  There's still the weekly grind through a 16 game regular season to get to the playoffs and then the ultimate goal.  There are still tackles that have to be made, completions that have to be thrown...Eagles anyone?

Let's take college students as different example.  A lot of them graduate with the idea that hey...I have a degree.  I have a piece of paper that says I did it!!!  Now employers should be lining up to sign me because I have this diploma that only cost me 150 grand and my soul.  

Only it doesn't happen that way.  Five years and a bankruptcy filing later, these grads are living in Mommy and Daddy's basement and ordering Dominoes  with quarters found in the couch upstairs and hoping their fantasy football league win will earn them enough to go on a date.  

If you want something relevantot this year's Superbowl, look no further than the Patriots in 2007. People were giving the the Lombardi Trophy, and a 14 point spread, way before the game was even played.  The Giants saw this, and while the Patriots were busy wrapped up in their own dominance and laughing it up with the media about how good and pretty they are, the G-Men were lying in wait, angry and ready to pounce. 

So back to 2011.  The Giants laid claim to the championship before it happened....hmmm.  As a Giants fan, I'd be more comfortable coming in pissed and not having my team talk about themselves so much.  I don't want them believing their own hype.  That's for the Philadelphia Beagles and the New York Airbuses.  

Unless of course you're in that 20 percent that I'm sure will someday get a college degree and make lovely ass prints on the couch in the basement.