The result of the game last night, a 21-17 win by the New York Giants over the New England Patriots in Super Bowl 46, should put to rest all doubt of this. The Patriots, leading 17-15 and in position to go down the rest of the field and put the game away with five minutes remaining, instead began making key and uncharacteristic mistakes. Wes Welker, one of the most quietly reliable receivers in football, dropped an easy pass that would have given the Pats a first down and put them in field goal range. A few plays later, Tom Brady fired a dart across the middle to Deion Branch, and threw it behind him. Unable to adjust to the ball, Branch watched the ball ricochet off his hands and fall incomplete. The Pats offense knew.
This set up the drive that will, rightfully so, go down in Super Bowl history as yet another by Eli Manning. After an absolutely perfect throw and catch between Manning and Mario Manningham, the defense knew it. After a few more plays in which the Giants drove down the field, making it look easy, even the audience knew it. It might as well have been foretold, and I doubt anybody was surprised when this was how the game ended.
What had become obvious to everyone watching was simple: Eli Manning is a better clutch quarterback than Tom Brady. There is no longer any way around that. Manning has now beaten the Patriots three straight times, Super Bowl 42 in 2008, in week 10 in November of last year, and last night, with a winning TD inside of the game’s final minute. In Super Bowl 42, Manning drove the length of the field (with a huge assist from the Velcro on David Tyree’s helmet of course) and hit Plaxico Burress for the game winner with 35 seconds to play, final score 17-14. In November in Foxboro, Manning drove the Giants to a win by adding the winning TD with 15 seconds to play, final score 24-20. And of course last night, where the Giants scored in one of the weirdest role reversals we’ve seen in recent football history, where the offense doesn’t want to score and the defense does, on an Admad Bradshaw touchdown run with 57 seconds to play, final score 21-17.
Everyone else might just see a team that became unfocused and made uncharacteristic mistakes in the game’s final moments when looking back at the Patriot offense. But that’s not what I saw. I saw a team that was so desperate to put the game away and keep it out of Eli’s hands that they began trying too hard to make plays. They became stressed out over the idea of watching Eli drive to the game winner, again. When football players aren’t comfortable in their skin, they don’t play as well. They make mistakes. It becomes more than a typical play as the weight of the situation creeps into the back of the player’s mind. Cris Collinsworth said Wes Welker makes that catch, with not a Giant defender within five yards of him, 100 out of 100 times. But he didn’t last night. The specter of giving Eli the ball in the game’s final moments was too great. In that situation, I don’t think there’s a better quarterback in the league right now than Manning.
Now let’s be clear. Tom Brady is still very likely the game’s best quarterback. This isn’t meant to signal the end of Brady’s reign over the league in that capacity. It’s very likely the Pats will log more trips to the playoffs in the coming years than the Giants. But he and his legendary coach Bill Belichick know. The announcers last night kept referring back to a Bob Costas interview with Brady a week earlier. Costas asked Brady if he would rather be up by three with two minutes to go and Eli have the ball, or down by three with two minutes and the ball. Brady very quickly said he would much rather have the ball than let Eli have it in that situation. While that may have been the answer of a true competitor, I think Tom knew how the alternative situation would play out. And I doubt he was surprised by how it ended last night.
Zac Johnson - My name is Zac Johnson. I'm a 22 year old senior at Arizona State University in Tempe, majoring in political science. I'll graduate in ...
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