Photo Showcase: Super Bowl XLVI
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INDIANAPOLIS — Elite and Eli. One and the same.
And now there are two Super Bowl championships and two MVPs to prove it.
Eli Manning is the big man in the NFL after one-upping Tom Brady and leading the New York Giants to a 21-17 victory against the New England Patriots in Sunday's Super Bowl — in older brother Peyton's house, at that.
"This isn't about one person,” Manning insisted. “This is about a team coming together."
A team led by a quarterback who months ago claimed — to snickers throughout the league — that he belonged in the same stratosphere as Brady, and then proved it.
Just as Manning did four years ago when the Giants ruined New England's perfect season, he guided them 88 yards to the decisive touchdown, which the Patriots didn't contest as Ahmad Bradshaw ran 6 yards with 57 seconds left.
“Certainly Eli has had a great season. He made some great throws in the fourth quarter, and they deserved to win,” Brady said.
They got some help from Patriots coach Bill Belichick, whose late-game risk didn't turn out as he planned. Belichick reasoned the Giants would run the clock down and kick a short field goal, so he gambled by allowing the six points.
The ploy failed.
“Ball was inside the 10-yard line, a 90 percent field goal conversion,” he said. “Sure, could have done a better job in a lot of things.”
Manning did everything asked of him in the final minutes, a habit for the eight-year veteran. He's beaten the Patriots in two thrilling Super Bowls. The Giants (13-7), who stood 7-7 in mid-December, now own the football world, and Manning owns two Super Bowl MVP awards, the same number as Brady.
It was a classic I-can-top-that showdown with the outcome in doubt until the last desperation pass fell to the turf as the last second ticked off the clock. Manning started the game with nine straight completions, a Super Bowl record; Brady hit 16 straight over the second and third quarters, breaking Joe Montana's Super bowl record of 13.
Manning finished 30 for 40 for 296 yards and one touchdown, while Brady was 27 for 41 for 276 yards with two TDs and one interception.
"It's been a wild game, a wild season," Manning said.
Manning led six comeback victories during the season and set an NFL record with 15 fourth-quarter touchdown passes. He showed that brilliance in the clutch on the winning drive, completing five passes, starting with a sensational 38-yard sideline catch by Mario Manningham.
On second down at the Patriots 6 and with only one timeout remaining, Belichick had his defense stand up as Bradshaw took the handoff. Bradshaw thought about stopping short of the end zone, then tumbled in untouched.
"I was yelling to him, ‘Don't score, don't score,' " Manning said. "He tried to stop, but he fell into the end zone."
Brady couldn't answer in the final 57 seconds, though his heave into the end zone on the final play fell just beyond the grasp of lunging All-Pro tight end Rob Gronkowski. New England (15-4), winner of 10 straight since a loss to the Giants in November, was done. Brady headed off with his head bowed, still one short of the record four Super Bowl victories by Terry Bradshaw for the Pittsburgh Steelers and Montana for the San Francisco 49ers.
Manning beat Brady. And he went one better than Peyton, the Indianapolis Colts quarterback who has one ring of his own but didn't play this season as he recovered from neck surgery.
It was the fifth trip to a Super Bowl for Brady and Belichick, tying the record. And it looked like a successful one when they stormed back from a 9-0 deficit and led 17-9 in the third quarter. But the Giants, who reached New England territory on every possession except a kneeldown at the end of the first half, got field goals of 38 and 33 yards from Tynes. And it looked like Tynes, who kicked them into the Super Bowl four years ago at Green Bay and again this year at San Francisco, both in overtime, would get called on again.
Then Belichick, known to try just about anything in a game, took a risk that didn't pay off.
The Giants are the first Super Bowl winner that was outscored during the regular season. Coach Tom Coughlin got his own piece of the record book as the oldest coach, at 65, to win a Super Bowl.
It was the Giants' fourth Super Bowl championship, more than any franchise except Pittsburgh with six and San Francisco and Dallas with five, and they became the first team to finish the regular season 9-7 and win the title.
New York made the critical plays, just as it did in 2008. With Manning in the lead.
"Two hundred and twenty-eight countries just saw Eli," running back Brandon Jacobs said. "I don't have to say anything."
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