In the end, it was all for naught

February 04, 2008|Jackie MacMullan, Globe Columnist

GLENDALE, Ariz. - Nobody's perfect.

Not Tom Brady, not Bill Belichick. Not the New England Patriots.

Their unbeaten season, the subject of so many historic superlatives as they broke record after record and mowed down opponent after opponent, was shattered last night inside a dome with a fabric roof by a football team from New York that reached out and tore off their own chunk of history.

Tom Coughlin's Giants ripped the Lombardi Trophy away from the heavily favored Patriots with old-fashioned, disciplined, hard-hitting football, the kind of game plan Belichick loves. Brady was harried from goal post to goal post, reducing the league's MVP to mere mortal status. His touted offensive line, with three Pro Bowlers, was humbled by the frenzied pressure of Justin Tuck and Michael Strahan and Osi Umenyiora and Jay Alford, who together sacked Brady five times, more than any other team during the Patriots' pristine regular season.

And yet, even so, Brady and his boys regrouped to march 80 yards into the end zone for a 14-10 lead with 2:42 left in the game, as they have done so many times before. In the clutch, they looked and behaved like a veteran team that knew how to close the deal.

But just as New England fans began conjuring various ailments for when they called in sick to attend yet another championship parade, Giants quarterback Eli Manning and his team accomplished the unthinkable: They answered back.

Loudly. Definitively.

Like champions.

And so New England's 18-0 mark is for naught, just as each and every Patriot player warned it would be if they could not win the Super Bowl. This seemingly magical season has gone up in smoke. The quest for perfection turned out to be a hollow, meaningless pursuit.

How much did this 17-14 Super Bowl XLII loss sting? So much so that when Brady's last-gasp bomb in the final seconds ticked off the outstretched fingers of Randy Moss, Belichick ran to the center of the field, embraced his friend Coughlin, then jogged into the locker room. As it turned out, there was one second left on the game clock, but Belichick did not reemerge.

It was too painful to watch.

And so the New York Giants, not your New England Patriots, are the champions of the football world this morning, having engineered one of the biggest upsets in NFL history. They accomplished it on the wings of young Manning, who will never again be reduced to the moniker of Peyton's little brother.

"Eli is always being compared to someone," said New York center Sean O'Hara. "Whether it's his dad, his brother, or Phil Simms. Well, I think Eli built his own platform tonight."