Giants 21, Patriots 17: 10 things we learned

By Jonathan Comey and Kerry J. Byrne
Cold, Hard Football Facts Tag-Team champion
 
INDIANAPOLIS - Here are 10 things we learned from a Super Bowl that will be remembered for a long time – too long, for New England fans, not long enough for joyous Giants fans.
 
1. Yes, Eli Manning is elite.
His status was determined long before this game was in the books, but Manning’s performance put a pretty nice bow on it. If we suffered the weakness of human emotion it'd be pretty easy to be happy for Manning. He’s always been the more likeable Manning bro, and watching him walk through the tunnel after the game with his little daughter in his arms – and a full uniform – was a nice sight.
 
He made the throws he need to, again didn’t make a mistake, and was the clear standout for a Giants team that needed him to be.
 
Manning has always seemed to be a series away from collapse, but this year he made the leap to greatness – like his brother, but with a special clutch quality that Peyton seems to lack.
 
What did he earn Sunday? A new car, a second Super Bowl title and probably a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Not a bad day’s work.
 
2. It’s always better when Super Bowls are won, not lost, but for New England this was not one of those times.
Heading to postgame interviews, Tom Brady walked dully, staring – glaring – straight ahead, flanked by a couple of team personnel with similarly grim looks. It didn’t take a mind-reader to feel his barely restrained disappointment and rage.
 
A few minutes later, he walked back toward the bus with his wife by his side, and a trail of reporters, and for that he put on a braver face, exchanging some words. But the first trip was the real thing. He was defeated. All the Patriots were.
 
The spirited Patrick Chung walked in a shuffle, head dropping every few steps.
 
To lose to the Giants again, in the Super Bowl, is bad enough – but losing the Super Bowl is a misery regardless of the opponent or history.
 
It’s the way they lost that’s a killer. Dropped balls, at the worst possible time. Missed throws, at the worst possible time. A defensive relapse, at the worst possible time.
 
And now, another season of doubt. Another season in Brady’s prime that didn’t achieve the ultimate result. Hopefully, Patriots fans can accept it as Bill Belichick would – it is what it is. The Patriots played better than 30 of the other 31 teams, and came a whisker from outplaying the last.
 
Small comfort – no comfort, really – but it’ll have to do. The Patriots are a couple plays away from perhaps undisputed status as the greatest dynasty in history. Now they’re just one of the greats.
 
3. It’s time for Giants fans to stop running Coughlin out of town.
Back in 2007, Coughlin was the least popular coach in the NFL – even among his own fans. The team then went on a dramatic run and won the Super Bowl.
 
Fans were ready to throw his body in the lovely Passaic River again this season, especially after the team fell to 7-7 with its second loss of the year to the Giants.
 
But nobody rallies the troops quite like Coughlin. He’s won his second Super Bowl in five years and did it in extremely rare circumstance.
 
Oh, and by the way: New England’s Belichick is widely considered the greatest coach of his generation. But he’s 1-5 vs. Coughlin – including 0-6 against the spread (for those of you who care about things). In other words, Coughlin not only routinely beats Belichick like no other coach in football, he routinely exceed the public’s expectations along the way.

Here's what Giants RB Brandon Jacobs said after the game:

“Tom Coughlin is one hell of a football coach. I’d rather go to war with coach Coughlin than anybody in the National Football League.”
 
Belichick, meanwhile, will get plenty of heat for his team laying down, allowing Ahmad Bradshaw to run in from 6 yards out for the game-winning score. He was asked after the game if he let the Giants score. But Belichick responded only with, “Right.”
 
Giving his offense a final chance to score was probably the right thing to do: he needed to give his offense one last shot to score. But Belichick is also a lightning rod – and he’s now suffered two Super Bowl losses to Coughlin’s Giants. He’s sure to catch plenty more heat for both the loss and for what some will argue is an affront to sportsmanship. As one reporter noted after the game, "Mike Holmgren is off the hook" for basically doing the same thing with the Packers when they lost too the Broncos in Super Bowl XXXII.
 
4. The Patriots’ defense was what we thought it was.
All year, New England’s defense followed the same pattern. Give up a lot of yards, not so many points, excel in the front seven but struggle in the back. And give the offense a chance to win.

That’s exactly what they did Sunday – but, just like they did vs. Baltimore, and in so many of their games along the way, they couldn’t close the deal in the fourth quarter. They gave up the big passes, allowed the other team back in it. It was their Achilles' heel all year, and it cost them.
 
And so, despite maybe their best defensive effort of the season, they came up short.
 
Still, it’s a unit that needs tweaking, not rebuilding, and will be better next year. But that will seem like a long time away.
 
5. Tom Brady is the game’s best short passer – ever. But his issues with the deep ball cost him and the Patriots dearly.
The entire first half, Brady didn’t throw a ball more than 20 yards in the air, but it didn’t matter. Their 14-play, 96-yard drive to cap the first half was a thing of beauty.
 
Purists might miss the days of three yards and a cloud of dust, but the Patriots have reinvented it as seven yards and a blur of action.
 
But when he did throw deep, it was a disaster. He threw a pick on a deep pass to Rob Gronkowski in the fourth quarter, and when he needed to make the big downfield strike he couldn’t.
 
How big was the limited ability of Gronkowski? It wasn’t the deciding factor. But in a game where every play was huge, not having him in peak position didn’t help. Gronkowski set tight end records for receiving yards and touchdown catches in 2011, but in the biggest game of the year he caught just 2 passes for 26 yards and couldn’t bail out his QB even when covered by linebacker Chase Blackburn.
 
6. History does repeat itself.
New York’s victory in this game had many of the same hallmarks of its win four years ago, including a great effort by the Giants defense, holding the Patriots to a season-low 17 points, a pair of sacks by defensive end Justin Tuck, a Most Valuable Player performance from Manning (30 of 40, 296 yards 1 TD, 0 INT, 103.8 rating) and a near-miraculous pitch and catch between the quarterback and one of his receivers during the game-winning drive.
 
Back in Super Bowl XLII, that memorable catch was made by David Tyree. This year, the role of receiving hero was played by Mario Manningham.
 
The Giants took over at their own 12, trailing 17-15 with just 3:46 to play in the fourth quarter. On the first play of the drive, Manning dropped a perfect ball into Manningham’s hands up the left sideline for a 38-yard gain with defenders Patrick Chung and Sterling Moore draped around him.
 
“Eli put a great ball out there,” said Manningham. “After I caught it I think the whole team figured we were going to win this.”
 
The Patriots challenged the ruling of a catch on the field, but replay confirmed that Manningham had kept both feet in bounds and kept possession of the ball.
 
7. Both offensive lines passed their tests.
All week, New England’s offensive line faced questions about its ability to keep the Giants’ pass rush at bay. Not a problem. The Giants got two sacks, but one of them was during the Pats’ Hail Mary drive.

And they opened up holes for the running backs (19 carries, 83 yards, 4.4 YPA).
 
The bigger mismatch was on the other side, New England’s D Hogs vs. New York’s streaky blockers. The Giants OL did allow three sacks but they also enabled Manning to pick up 26 first downs and average 4.1 YPA on the ground themselves.
 
It really was one of the most evenly played games in recent memory, across the board – no one had a clear advantage anywhere on the field.
 
8. Indianapolis deserves another Super Bowl.
It’s hard to overstate what a good job the city did for this game. The staff was incredibly nice – all week, from everything you heard, and the city just had its act together. In Dallas last year, things were tense and confusing, the opposite of what fans were treated to this year.
 
It didn’t hurt that it was a gorgeous, clear 50-degree day on Super Sunday. Comey walked around the stadium with his buddies two times and were all struck at just how fun the whole scene was. Byrne sat shriveled up in his room like a Parisian bell-ringer of pigskin and barely exposed himself to the scenery around him, sunlight or interactions with other human beings. But that's what he does best.
 
9. That might have been the most shocking first quarter start in Super Bowl history.
A safety on intentional grounding … on a pass down the middle? Twelve men on the field after making a game-changing defensive strip? New England’s early defensive surge was wasted by a pair of bad, bad penalties.
 
The play in the end zone was a shock for three reasons – one, that it was called knowing that it’d result in a safety, two, that it would be called on a pass down the middle of the field (NEVER called!), and three, that it came on a play where Brady wasn’t facing obvious pressure that usually you see with a call like that.
 
As for the 12-men-on-the-field call, it was a crippler. In addition to being un-Patriotic, it negated a great play by Sterling Moore with the strip (someone’s been paying attention in practice). In the end, the Giants had the ball for pretty much the entire first 11:30 of the game. All things being equal, it was lucky that the Patriots only allowed nine points.
 
10. Other things learned …
The NFL might want to consider cutting down on the between-play hype at Super Bowl sites in favor of replays.
 
Fans in the stands never got a second look at the end-zone holding call and safety in the first quarter. We cn’t imagine anyone would prefer season highlights between plays over live shots of the field.  … Interesting to hear the Pats’ “This is Our House” song after touchdowns … in Peyton Manning’s house. … Kevin Faulk was inactive – not a big surprise, considering how little he’s played this year. But his presence in the lockerroom is a really big deal, and his impact on this franchise during the great run has been notable.
 
Hakeem Nicks was the game’s leading receiver with 10 catches for 109 yards.
 
Eli Manning tied and NFL record with his eighth game-winning drive in one season, according to Captain Comeback Scott Kacsmar.
 
The Giants are officially the worst regular-season team to go on to win a Super Bowl. Their regular-season record (9-7), point differential (-6) and Defensive Passer Rating (86.10) are all the worst of any Super Bowl champion. But as Manning, Coughlin and the Giants have twice proven in historic fashion, the modern NFL is all about turning it on at the right time.

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Read more: Bill Belichick, Eli Manning, Giants, New York Giants, NFL, Super Bowl, Super Bowl XLVI, Tom Brady, Tom Coughlin