Sabotage? Hours before the NFL playoff game, a team notices something is wrong with their showers

Few things in sport are better than an honest rivalry.

There’s a reason sports fans who don’t watch baseball can admire the rivalry between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. There’s a reason sports fans who don’t watch basketball can entertain you about the rivalry between the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics. There’s a reason sports fans who don’t watch collegiate sports can get poetic about rich college rivalries like Michigan-Ohio State or Duke-North Carolina.

This reason? Rivalries are fun, and while there’s far too much hate in the world, sports “hate” can add intensity to any game.

Case in point: There might not be much to write about when it comes to tonight’s NFC divisional round game between the New York Giants and the Philadelphia Eagles. On paper at least, the Eagles are as good and talented as their 14-3 regular-season record suggests, and they’ll be hosting the Giants in Philadelphia to boot. The game could end in a 56-0 bludgeoning.

But the Giants and Eagles are fierce NFC East rivals, with their disdain for one another perhaps matched only by their disdain for their NFC East nemesis, the Dallas Cowboys. And with that rivalry comes much closer scrutiny of even the most mundane incidents.

Take, for example, what the Giants unluckily discovered at their hotel before today’s game.

The hotel had no water this morning, according to ESPN Beat reporter Jordan Raanan.

The Giants’ team hotel in Center City has no water, per well (and how @LicensePlateGuy said). burst pipe. No showers this morning. They are working to fix it. #Giants #Eagle

— Jordan Raanan (@JordanRaanan) January 21, 2023

Raanan quoted one notable Giants superfan as first bringing up the “little problem” at the hotel.

So, small problem in the team hotel. Pipes ‘broke’, no water, I can’t shower this morning. #Giants #playoffs

– LPG – NYG (@LicensePlateGuy) January 21, 2023

Note that the word “breakdown” is in quotation marks, suggesting that something more undesirable than just a plumbing problem was going on. Thanks to the magic of the rivalries, it wasn’t long before other Giants fans immediately assumed that shenanigans had taken place.

I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but the solution is there.

Garbage, fraudulent city attempts sabotage

— Joe Setyon (@JoeSetyon) January 21, 2023

Giants team hotel in Center City without water.

Plumbers in Philadelphia get the call to fix the problem: pic.twitter.com/iXbYseOFb6

— Pat Gallen (@PatGallenCBS3) January 21, 2023

Imagine being so scared of an opponent that you cut off their water supply. Giants are the bigger team here.

— Jeff Eisenband (@JeffEisenband) January 21, 2023

Luckily for the Giants and their more tinfoil-topped fans, the hotel’s water was eventually restored, giving the Giants ample time to shower and drink.

I repeat. The Giants can shower before the game. The water is back on

— Pat Leonard (@PLeonardNYDN) January 21, 2023

This story also illustrates the beauty of sporting rivalries. Broken plumbing is hardly newsworthy in and of itself. But given the teams involved, you have a real “moment” before the big game.

Speaking of which, I don’t want to mention that while the Giants are underdogs, they inject a lot of positive momentum into this game.

Not only do they have an elite attacking coach in Brian Daboll, but the team have won eight of their last 10 games after bringing back No. 5 overall Kayvon Thibodeaux from injury. Contested quarterback Daniel Jones looks like he’s reinvented himself under Daboll’s stewardship, and superstar running back Saquon Barkley is looking like his old self again. There’s a lot that Giants fans can be positive about.

While New York will try to play spoilers on Saturday night, in the afternoon game the Jacksonville Jaguars will take on the Kansas City Chiefs on the road. Then on Sunday, the Cincinnati Bengals travel to Buffalo to face the Bills, while the San Francisco 49ers host the Dallas Cowboys to complete the divisional round of the NFL playoffs.