New York Giants edge Patriots for Super Bowl title
Roar Guru The New York Giants have held out the New England Patriots to record a 21-17 victory, with Ahmad Bradsaw running six yards for the deciding touchdown with just 57 second remaining in the game.
The Giants won their fourth Super Bowl, with the victory their second over the Patriots since the 2008 NFL championship match, as well as wngs in 1987 and 1991.
A crowd of 68,658 saw New York’s Eli Manning guide the Giants on an 88-yard touchdown drive in the closing minutes capped by Bradshaw’s scoring run.
“It just feels good to win a Super Bowl no matter where you are or what stadium it is,” Manning said.
Manning was named the game’s Most Valuable Player after completing 30-of-40 passes for 296 yards and a touchdown.
New England has some 57 seconds to steal the game, needing a touchdown to win, but quarterback Tom Brady was unable to complete the miracle, a final hail-mary sent with just five seconds on the clock.
New York defenders made certain that the offensive drive would fail, completing their run of seven games in a row for the title.
The Giants opened the scoring to lead 9-0, but the Patriots rallied to lead 10-9 at half-time.
As the game progressed, the Giants clung to a 17-15 lead, shutting down Brady and the Patriots offense in midfield. With the Patriots forced to punt, the Giants took the ball at their own 12-yard line with 3:46 to play.
Manning completed a spectacular 38-yard pass to Mario Manningham that was confirmed on a video replay challenge to put New York at midfield.
Three plays later, Bradshaw ran untouched into the end zone for a touchdown that gave the Giants a 21-17 lead and with victory in sight.
A two-point conversion run failed, leaving 57 seconds for the Patriots to try and score a touchdown to win the game.
The Patriots got their opportunity, but the Giants were not to be denied.
“At half-time I said we can play better than this. They agreed,” Giants coach Tom Coughlin said. “We came out energised in the second half and the rest is history.”
Brady threw a four-yard touchdown pass to Danny Woodhead with eight seconds to play in the second quarter to give the Patriots a 10-9 half-time lead, the score capping a 96-yard drive.
The Patriots began the second half with another touchdown march, this one of 79 yards and finished off by Brady’s 12-yard touchdown pass over the middle to Aaron Hernandez to put New England ahead 17-9 only 3:40 into the third quarter.
New York answered on field goals of 38 and 33 yards by Lawrence Tynes to pull within 17-15 entering the fourth quarter..
New England had to settle for a 29-yard Stephen Gostkowski field goal to pull within 9-3 just 72 seconds into the second quarter after Jason Pierre-Paul batted down a Brady pass to shut down a 60-yard drive.
(with AAP)
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The Crowd Says (6) | Page 1 of Comments
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- New York Giants, NFL, Super Bowl, Super Bowl XLVI
February 6th 2012 @ 5:54pm
Jason said | February 6th 2012 @ 5:54pm | Report comment
It looked like the Patriots let NY score that last TD so they could get the ball back.
The question is, why didn’t they let them score earlier. The Giants were able to run 45 seconds off the clock at the death there before that TD.
February 6th 2012 @ 6:44pm
Steve said | February 6th 2012 @ 6:44pm | Report comment
Yeah, they were talking about it on espn radio. Eli manning was yelling at him to not score, but he realised it to late.
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February 7th 2012 @ 2:55am
BennO said | February 7th 2012 @ 2:55am | Report comment
I don’t understand why that would have been better than scoring. Could you fellas explain? I mean, it seems a pretty big risk by the patriots to let them score to get the ball back and also would be by the giants to not score to run the clock down before scoring hopefully later.
February 7th 2012 @ 8:12am
Lucan said | February 7th 2012 @ 8:12am | Report comment
Giants were in a virtually unmissable range for a field goal. If they were able to run the clock and kick the almost guaranteed field goal with the last play of the match the Patriots wouldn’t have had any chance to reply. Not a lot of risk for the NYG.
Personally don’t agree with the practice, but their game is all about strategy and outwitting the opposing coach.
February 7th 2012 @ 10:06am
stojo01 said | February 7th 2012 @ 10:06am | Report comment
Also the touchdown was on 2nd and Goal. They had two more tackles left and 3 timeouts so they could have had two attempts at a field goal unless the first one was blocked and recovered in the field of play by the Patriots. The nearest similar thing that comes to mind in Australian sport is the 11 rushed behinds in the 2008 Grand final or god forbid the underarm bowling incident. Both of those events forced a rule change so i imagine the NFL will look at it in the off season but honestly who would incur the foul the Patriots who let them scopre quickly or the Giants who refused to score quickly. Watching the game peter out in a time wasting field goal wouldn’t have been much of a spectacle compared with what did happen at the end.
February 7th 2012 @ 1:00pm
BennO said | February 7th 2012 @ 1:00pm | Report comment
Thanks fellas.