Columns

Memorable rewrite of NFL history

By GARY SHELTON, Times Columnist
Published February 4, 2008

ADVERTISEMENT [Gabriel Bouys | Getty Images] "We believed in ourselves all year," Giants quarterback and game most valuable player Eli Manning said.

GLENDALE, Ariz. - History was made here, all right. Greatness was achieved.

There were plays that will last forever. There were moments that will never be forgotten. There was a finish that looked very much like perfection.

All in all, those Giants were something to see, weren't they?

In the greatest upset the Super Bowl has ever seen, the imperfect Giants shut down the perfect Patriots 17-14. And just like that, everything changed.

Suddenly, it was the Giants quarterback who looked calm enough to impress the legends. It was the New York defense that looked fierce and furious. Suddenly, it was the Giants who looked like a team for the ages.

New York 17, New England 14.

And the Super Bowl has never seen anything quite like this.

Oh, other underdogs have won, and sometimes, they have done so in the face of bigger point spreads. But no other Super Bowl team - not the Jets in '69 nor the Giants' in '91 nor the Patriots in '02 - managed to stop perfection. No one else had to deal with so much talk about history.

Remember them as the myth-busters.

Remember them as the Giant killers.

It is gone now, all that chatter about history and immortality. Mercifully, the Giants stopped that, too. Perfect silence, you might call it.

These Patriots were unbeaten and unbeatable, remember? They were a dynasty. They were a dictatorship. Now they are yesterday's news, a team that won 18 meaningless games before losing the one that counts.

That's the way it works in the NFL. The Super Bowl is Final Jeopardy, and a team is required to risk everything in order to play. From now on, the only way these Patriots will be remembered is as a cautionary tale. For a hundred years, coaches will tell their players to finish or risk winding up like the Patriots.

In the end, this was Eli Manning's game. As of today, he is the most popular man in New York, and you will be hard pressed to find anyone who will admit to doubting him at any time. The truth is different. Manning has become money.

In particular, fans will discuss Manning's spectacular play with 59 seconds to go when he pulled away from Richard Seymour, retreated and heaved a pass downfield and into the leaping arms of David Tyree, who pinned the ball against his helmet as he fell to the ground. A few plays later, and Manning found Plaxico "Nostradamus" Burress in the left corner of the end zone.

But even before Manning out-comebacked Tom Brady, the Giants took it to the Patriots. They seemed fiercer on defense, smoother on offense, smarter on the sideline. They held one of the greatest offenses ever to 14 points. They came from behind on a defense that prides itself on making the big stop.

This was like watching a legend unravel bit by bit. New York chiseled away at the perceptions of the Patriots' greatness while establishing its own.

Remember all that talk about Brady being one of the finest quarterbacks in the history of the game? The Giants contained Brady by turning him into a human pinata, overwhelming an offensive line with three Pro Bowl players and knocking Brady repeatedly to the ground.

Remember all the discussion about how two weeks of preparation turns Bill Belichick into a genius? This time, it didn't seem to work. That was Belichick choosing to go for a first down on fourth and 13 on the Giants 31 instead of trying a 48-yard field goal. In a three-point loss, New England fans might spend some time discussing that today.

Remember all of that talk about how the Patriots were a team for the ages? There was an impression that New England was not only the best team in history, but that they could handle an all-star team from the '86 Bears, the '89 49ers and the '72 Dolphins (who, as it turns out, are still giddy).

The best season ever? As it turns out, there are 42 teams in the past 42 seasons that have had better seasons. They are called "Super Bowl champions."

"It's a shame we came so close to being special," Seymour said. "And now we're second class."

There are those who will call it justice. With a new batch of Spygate charges pointed at the Patriots, with Congress getting interested in why the NFL destroyed the evidence this season, with Belichick grumping his way through the day, New England can be a difficult team to like.

Even now, you can hear the critics howl. "Gee," they will say. "Do you think Belichick might have done better if he had films of the Giants' sideline?"

As for the Giants, well, everyone loves a champion, especially one that averaged so many miles per victory. The Giants were better against the Patriots than they were against the Packers, and better against the Packers than they were against the Cowboys, and better against the Cowboys than they were against the Bucs. One can only imagine how good they would be next week.

"We shocked the world," Giants defensive end Michael Strahan said. "We shocked everybody. We even shocked ourselves."

The Giants are surprised? Strahan should have looked at the faces of the Patriots. Perhaps that is their epitaph.

In the end, they were perfectly shocked.

[Last modified February 4, 2008, 01:24:34]