Super Bowl rewind

Tom Brady drifted across the field, his facial expression sunk with disbelief, as confetti rained down all around him.  For the second time in four years, his Patriots had come up short against the Giants in the Super Bowl, depriving him of his chance to move to the top of the class among the all time greats.  Several hundred miles away, back in New England, millions of Patriots fans had that same sinking pit in their stomach feeling as they watched their team exit the field.

To be honest, I'm still not over it.  This isn't as bad as 2007, when the Patriots fell just short of being immortalized with a perfect season, but this is still pretty bad.  Granted there are plenty of fan bases from teams that have never even been to a Super Bowl that see no reason to feel sorry for Patriots fans that have been spoiled by their success, but those fans don't know what it's like to come so close, only to have it all slip away.

Like their last Super Bowl meeting, this game was a classic thriller that once again came down to the wire.  If a play or two had broken differently in this game then the outcome could have been drastically different.  So as painful as this experience may be, to find out where things went wrong, we need to break down the game with a Super Bowl rewind.

• Super Bowl XLVI is set in Indianapolis.  It's far from being one of the warm weather destinations that we typically associate with the big game, but at least they have a dome that prevents weather from being a factor in the game.  Seriously though, aside from getting to see the game, who gets excited about going to Indy?
• You can tell from the start that the crowd is decisively in favor of the Giants.  The game is being played in the home of the Colts, who for over a decade have been led by Petyon Manning.  You may have heard, his little brother is playing in this game.  If the crowd isn't full of Giant fans then they are at least Colts fans that will cheer for Eli since he's Peyton's brother, plus they hate the Patriots because they have been one of the Colts biggest rivals this decade.  So already this is starting to feel like a road game.  So much for neutral sites.  Advantage - Giants.
• Kelly Clarkson sings the National Anthem.  She does a better job than Christina Aguilera did last year, because at least Kelly gets the words right.  I don't understand why she has children singing in the background behind her.  I mean, they don't even have microphones, so the only one in the entire stadium that can hear them is Kelly Clarkson.
• The Patriots win the coin toss and predictably elect to defer the ball until the second half.  I really wish I had put some money down on one of those prop bets where you bet which team starts with the ball.  Taking the Giants in that bet was a no-brainer.
• The Pats kick off and the game is under way!  The Giants open the game with a drive that quickly gets them into New England territory, but the Pats defense comes up big with two sacks that stall the drive.  Pats defense seems up to the challenge early.
• A great punt by the Giants pins the Pats down at their own 6 yard line.  Not a good sign, considering a big factor in their regular season loss to the Giants was poor starting field position.
• On the first offensive snap of the game for the Patriots, they are called for a safety after an intentional grounding penalty is called in the endzone.  Are you kidding me?!  Brady had to get rid of the ball or he would have been sacked, but it's not as if he just threw the ball into the ground.  He launched it straight down the middle of the field.  It certainly wasn't catchable, but there were receivers in the area.  Just not where it landed, because the ball soared a couple feet over their heads.  Tough call that puts the Pats in an early hole.
• Side note - when you're backed up that close to your own endzone, why wouldn't you start with a safe run play up the middle to give yourself some more breathing room.  When you know the Giants have a good pass rush, why put yourself in position where Brady needs to throw from the endzone?
• After the safety, the Patriots are forced to punt the ball back to the Giants, who effortlessly breeze their way back down the field again to get into the redzone for the first time this game.
• On third and three from the Pats 11 yard line, Victor Cruz catches a four yard pass for a first down, but the swarming Patriots defense knocks the ball out!  Brandon Spikes recovers the fumble and the Pats have their first big break of the game!  Wait, nevermind.  A penalty is called on New England for having 12 players on the field.  Seriously?  In what will probably be one of the biggest plays of the game, the Pats lose out on a key turnover due to a dumb penalty that should never happen on this big of a stage.
• Of course Cruz would  make up for his almost fumble two plays later by catching a TD pass.  The Super Bowl crowd gets to witness his trademark salsa dance routine.
• The Patriots counter with a long drive of their own, but Aaron Hernandez can't haul in a short pass in the redzone, so they have to settle for a field goal.  At least they are on the scoreboard and within one score.
• After failed drives by each team, the Patriots get the ball back again with about four minutes left, but the Giants have pinned them all the way back at their own two yard line. 
• Chad Ochocinco makes his first (and only) catch of the game for 21 yards.  It'll end up being the Patriots biggest offensive gain of the day. 

• Predictably, Pats fans get way too excited about Ochocinco making a catch.
• Brady leads a brilliant drive, completing all 10 of his passes, which results in a TD pass to Danny Woodhead with only seconds remaining before the half.
• Without enough time to attempt a drive of their own, the Giants kneel out the clock to end the half.  The Patriots enter halftime up 10-9.
• The halftime show is put on by Madonna.  She puts on a decent show, with plenty of theatrics and dance moves.  Not bad, for a woman in her 50's.  At one point I thought they had brought Vince Wilfork out on stage, but turns out that was Cee Lo Green. 
• Have to say that this year the commercials weren't that great.  Considering each one costs enough to fund a small country, you would think they'd put more effort into it.  Coca-Cola had one with what looked to be a handicapped polar bear.  Chevy had one that led us to believe that if you buy one of their trucks then you'll survive the upcoming Mayan apocalypse (the same sadly can't be said for those poor Ford owners).  Doritos had a couple of good ones, such as the dog that bribed his owner with a bag of chips to keep him quiet after he witnessed the dog burying the neighbors cat.  Then of course there is Matthew Broderick, who sold out the role that made him famous as a child star to make a Ferris Bueller inspired commercial about skipping work to drive around in a Honda CR-V.  Would have been better if he was promoting a car people would actually want.
• After scoring just before halftime, the Patriots receive the kick to start the second half (see the brilliance of Belichick deferring?).  They soon capitalize when Brady connects on a 12 yard strike to Hernandez for a TD to put the Pats up by 8.
• The Giants add on field goals in each of their next two drives two finish the third quarter and pull within two points.  On the drive before the second FG, Hakeem Nicks fumbled the ball near mid-field, but the ball took a fortunate bounce for the Giants that allowed them to recover the ball and avoid a costly disaster.
• Looking to spark the offense, Brady takes a risk by launching a deep pass to a hobbled Gronkowski early in the 4th quarter.  Gronk's sprained ankle limits his explosiveness and prevents him from reacting fast enough or jump high enough to make a play on the ball, which is intercepted by the Giants.  Have to believe a healthy Gronk would have had it, or at least been close enough to making the play to draw a pass interference flag, but he wasn't quick enough to get to the ball.
• The Giants fumble the ball again!  This time it's Bradshaw who let's the ball slip through his fingers, but another fortunate bounce gives the ball back to New York.  So if you're keeping track, that's three fumbles for the Giants in this game, two of which they recovered themselves and another that was overturned by a penalty.  A fumbled ball typically has an equal chance for each team to recover the ball.  Sometimes to win a big game you need a little luck.  So far the Giants are getting the breaks.
• The Patriots have a chance to add to their lead as they drive into the Giants side of the field.  They may even be able to run out the clock, considering the Giants had foolishly wasted two of their time outs earlier in the half.  Yet their drive stalled just out of field goal range, forcing them to punt. 

• Wes Welker's drop on this drive will be looked back on as a key play that was one of a few factors that may have cost the team a win.  The ball was thrown slightly off target, but Welker had his hands on it and should have been able to haul it in.  An elite receiver like him has to make that catch, especially in such an important moment.  A catch would have given them Pats a first down well within field goal range.  Even if they didn't find the endzone, they likely at least would have gotten three points, while chewing up more of the clock.  Instead, they ended up having to punt the ball back to the Giants.
• Nearing the end of the 4th quarter, the Giants still find themselves behind by 2 points, starting from their own 12 yard line.  Their drive gets off to a great start, with Manning placing a pass perfectly along the sideline to an open Mario Manningham for a 38 yard gain - easily the biggest play of the game, to set them up at mid-field.
• Belichick challenged the catch, even though it had little chance of being overturned.  Belichick is one of the league's smartest coaches when it comes to challenges, but this may have been a wise move even if he knew it probably wouldn't be overturned.  If Manningham had stepped out of bounds it would have been a huge change in momentum in their favor.  Even though the ruling on the field was confirmed as a catch, it still gave the Patriots defense time to regroup, essentially acting as a time out.  He still had one challenge left after that, so with the two minute warning approaching, losing a challenge here was low risk.
• It didn't take long after that for the Giants to make their way down into the redzone.  From here it seemed inevitable that the Giants would take the lead.  The only questions were by how much, and more importantly, how much time would they leave on the clock. 
• It's hard to fault the Giants clock management given the outcome of the game, but they made a crucial mistake that could have cost them the game.  After they picked up a first down inside the 10 yard line, the Giants could have knelt down three straight times to wind down the clock until there was almost no time left, before kicking a game winning field goal as time expired.  Granted that plan wouldn't guarantee them victory, especially after seeing how Baltimore had lost to this Patriots team just two weeks ago, but a field goal attempt from that distance is successful about 96% of the time.  They would have almost certainly taken a lead, without allowing any time left for the Patriots to try to score.  Instead, the Patriots defense stepped aside and basically allowed Bradhsaw to coast into the endzone for a TD, which gave the Patriots nearly a minute to try to counter.

• To his credit, Bradshaw seemed to realize this at the last moment and actually tried to stop at the one yard line, but his momentum carried him into the endzone anyway.
• Armed with one time out, Brady would have about a minute to engineer a scoring drive of his own to give his team another Super Bowl victory.  It all seemed perfectly set up for Brady to pull off another of his patented comeback victories and cement his legacy as the greatest of all time.  Unfortunately, he needed a little help from his team to do it, and he didn't get it this time.  Taking a sack on third down didn't help either, as it cost them their last time out.  The Patriots offense made a valiant effort to at least get the ball to mid-field, giving Brady a shot to at least reach the endzone for a desperation Hail Mary throw.
• They got to mid-field on another break that went the Giants way.  New York was penalized five yards for having too many men on the field.  It was essentially a free play for the Pats, but the extra defender may have played a part in why the pass resulted in an incompletion.  Sure, they got five free yards out of it, but they also lost 8 seconds off the clock, a trade off the Giants would take every time.  So the Giants may have benefited from breaking the rules?  We don't know if they did this on purpose, but if they did then it was a brilliant way of bending the rules.  As unfair as it may be, it worked.
• With time for only one more play, Brady launched a pass 50 yards into the end zone. A crowd of receivers and defensive backs challenged for the ball like a pack of hungry wolves.  A Giants defender managed to tip the ball away from the outstretched arms of Hernandez.  As the ball began to tumble harmlessly to the ground, Gronkowski dove desperately after it, falling just short of making a miracle play.  Perhaps if he had two good ankles to push off of he could have made that play.  We'll never know. 
• Final score, Giants 21, Patriots 17.
• Sometimes all it takes to win a big game is to get a couple of lucky breaks.  The Giants got those breaks in this game.  They recovered their fumbles.  They didn't drop passes when it mattered most.  They were twice aided by 12 men on the field penalties, even though one of them was against them.  Then there's that questionable safety call at the beginning of the game.  How different would the outcome have been if the Pats had led by 4 instead of 2, with the Giants needing to score a TD instead of the Pats letting them score a TD?  These are the types of questions that will keep the Patriots and their fans up at night - the 'What Ifs.'  In the end, it's irrelevant.  The Patriot didn't get the breaks they needed, so they lost. 
• The Giants became not only the first team to win a Super Bowl with a negative point differential during the regular season (-6), but also the first team to win a Super Bowl with less than 10 regular season wins.  This proves that what happened a few months ago doesn't really matter.  As long as you're good enough to get a playoff spot, the only thing that matters is who happens to be playing at their best when it counts in the postseason.
• Now Eli has his second Super Bowl title - one more than his brother.  If he can have a few more years where he puts up the type of stats he did this season, we may one day be discussing which Manning has had the better career.  It wasn't long ago that people would have scoffed at that suggestion, just as they scoffed at Eli's comments before the season that he was in the same class as Tom Brady.  Nobody believed it.  Now we no better.
• As for Tom Brady and the Pats, next year they'll start over with a fresh slate (and hopefully an improved defense).  He'll likely still have more chances to add to his list of playoff wins and could still add a 4th Super Bowl ring.  It just won't be this year.