Bill Burt
GLENDALE, Ariz. — This one is going to hurt for a while. Maybe even a full year, if the New England Patriots are lucky enough to beat their way through 15 other teams in the brutal American Football Conference.
Too much had gone too right for the 2007 Patriots.
There is a reason no team has gone through the NFL like a hot knife through butter as the Miami Dolphins did in 1972. It's hard. And with each week and month, it gets harder.
The Patriots were a marked team here in the Greater Phoenix area. The story about the 2001 Patriots allegedly filming the Rams final Super Bowl XXXVI walkthrough is an example. The story could have come out months ago, but it wouldn't have gotten the juice it got this week.
And Sen. Arlen Specter, a rabid Philadelphia Eagles fan, was emblematic of what the Patriots have been up against. Nobody, including and especially ex-players trying to protect their own legacies, wanted the Patriots anywhere near this perfect record.
But, and there is a big but here, the New York Giants won fair and square.
They had a better game plan — when it doubt, run out the clock.
They had a better pass rush, which made a gutsy Tom Brady look mortal.
And they are the only team in the world who had what it took to get knocked down by one of the greatest football teams of all-time and get back up.
Others have come close, but usually Brady figured it out.
Well, this time Giants quarterback Eli Manning did something his elder, more talented brother has been able to do — he figured the Patriots out.
Of course, the signature play of this game will be Manning, seemingly sacked by Jarvis Green — who has cut his teeth sacking Eli's brother in big games — breaking out of a swarm of bodies, like Superman, hitting David Tyree for a 32-yard pass to the Patriots' 24-yard line.
As great as Eli's play was, the catch might have been better. Tyree leaped up about four feet in the air — it may have been higher — and fought off Rodney Harrison. Tyree was somehow able to hold on to the ball, extending his body to break away from a Harrison's arm.
Considering what happened soon after, with Manning hitting Plaxico Burress for what turned into an easy 13-yard go-ahead touchdown, it might be the greatest play in Super Bowl history.
"It was just a great catch by David Tyree," said Manning. "I found a way to get loose, and just really threw it up. He made an unbelieveable catch and saved the game."
As for the Patriots legacy, the Patriots are not about playing in championships. They are about winning them. So you can pretty much guess where this team will sit in sports lore.
Can you say the 1969 Baltimore Colts, the 1980 Soviet Union hockey team or even Mike Tyson (vs. Buster Douglas)?
New Englanders are not used to this. You (and I) have become fat cats when it comes to our teams.
But today we are all eating humble pie. To be honest, my mother-in-law's pecan pie tastes a lot better.
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Bill Burt can be reached by e-mail at bburt@eagletribune.com.
