USA TODAY International Edition
Bradshaw falls into end zone, Super Bowl lore
TD run proves game- winner
INDIANAPOLIS — Ahmad Bradshaw could have walked through the defense.
Instead he ran and found himself a foot away from the goal line on second down with an important decision to make.
Down two with a little more than a minute left, the Giants needed a score. But did they need it now, with New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady waiting for one last shot?
“I took the handoff and said, ‘ Don’t score, don’t score,’ ” Bradshaw said. “I tried to get down, but my momentum took me in.”
Bradshaw squatted at the goal line, made a frantic choice and tumbled in, giving the Giants a 21- 17 lead — which held up — and Brady less than a minute to score a touchdown.
“I should’ve told him not to score,” Giants quarterback Eli Manning said. “The thought crossed my mind in the huddle, but I didn’t say it.”
That set the stage for Brady, who has two Super Bowl MVP awards and 35 career gamewinning drives, and who said last week that he’d rather be losing with the ball in his hands than winning from the bench.
After his nightmare played out in Super Bowl XLII, which ended with a game- winning Giants drive, Brady got his wish in the sequel but didn’t deliver.
His passes fell incomplete on first and second downs, and he was sacked on third down by Justin Tuck. Tuck sacked Brady twice, just as he had in 2008.
A converted Patriots first down on fourth- and- 16 led to another completion, two more misses and, finally, a failed heave into the end zone as regulation expired.
“It felt great,” Tuck said of his sack. “It isn’t easy for me to sit up here and talk about all the stuff I did, but this was a team effort, a team win.”
All of it might not have been possible without the catch of the night on a 38- yard toss down the sideline from Manning. Mario Manningham grabbed it just before Patriots help arrived.
The catch didn’t have the awe- inspiring dymanics of David Tyree’s against- the- helmet grab in 2008, but it swung momentum in the direction of East Rutherford, N. J., minutes after the Giants lost their second of two tight ends to injuries.
“We moved the ball down the field and Eli made some great plays,” Giants coach Tom Coughlin said. “Manningham made a huge play to get usdown there. We tried to take a little more time off the clock, but it didn’t work that way.”
Manningham had three of his five catches in the game’s final drive as the late go- to man for the Super Bowl XLVI MVP.
“You’ve just got to be patient with this game,” Manningham said. “You know big plays are going to come, you’ve just got to take advantage.”
Relegated to the sideline, Manningham and Bradshaw rejoiced after the Hail Mary pass was broken up.
“It’s the greatest feeling in my life,” Bradshaw, who had 72 yards on 17 carries, said of winning the Super Bowl. “It’s two of the greatest teams in the NFL, and we won it.”
Patriots coach Bill Belichick defended the choice to concede the TD. “Ball was inside the 10yard line,” he said, “a 90% field goal conversion.”
However, Coughlin reminded, “There’s no guarantee kicking the field goal, either. Thank God it worked out.”