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Beckett’s Super Bowl XLII Coverage

Super Sunday Profit Potential

Super Showdown: The Running Backs

Franchise vs. Franchise: Part I

Franchise vs. Franchise: Part II

Super Showdown: The Quarterbacks

Wes Welker: An Appreciation

A Postcard from Gillette

Monday Morning Collector: Conference Championships

Plaxico Burress raised something of a mini-ruckus late last week by asserting that he and his fellow Giants receivers were as good, or better, than their Super Bowl XLII counterparts from New England.

“We have guys that can go out and do things just as well or maybe better than some of those guys,” Burress said, launching an early bulletin-board salvo in advance of the big game.

Of course, such a juicy sound byte got us to thinking . . . and all of a sudden we’re neck-deep in some geeky hobby number-crunching. Our conclusion: There may indeed be things the Giants’ receivers do better than the Patriots’ pass-catchers. Being collected is not one of them.

Turns out the team with the single-season touchdown-catch leader (Randy Moss) and the guy who finished tied for the league lead with 112 catches in 2007 (Wes Welker) holds a decisive edge in the collectibles department, too.

To arrive at that conclusion, we compared the Giants’ top two receivers (Burress and Amani Toomer) with the Patriots’ top two (Moss and Welker) in four trading card categories: Total Cards, Rookie Cards, Certified Autograph Cards and Memorabilia Cards.

The breakdown is as follows (database research compiled by Tim Trout):