GLENDALE, ARIZ. — Hello, Broadway Eli.
It will never be one for the textbooks, the ragged, magnificent, improbable, fortunate and in the end brilliant 83-yard drive led by quarterback Eli Manning, with which the New York Giants derailed what moments before seemed the greatest football team in history.
But who needs dry academic gridiron lit with all of those dreary X's and O's when there's a fairy tale to be had? An old-fashioned blockbuster finish, a novella in which the hero is both drawn straight from central casting and is as unlikely in the role as a guy plucked off the street?
And now one thing is certain. With that drive, with that 17-14 Super Bowl victory, with the end of the New England Patriots' season one game short of perfection, there's a new star in the Big Apple sky.
Move over Joes Namath and DiMaggio, Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, Keith Hernandez and Mark Messier and all of the others who received the blessing of the toughest, and at the same time most sentimental, audience in the world.
Little Brother Manning is right there with them now and forever, even if he never hits these heights again.
For a long, long time the final 21/2 minutes of the 42nd Super Bowl will be recalled with glee by Giants fans, and with regret by those who loved or admired the Patriots, and will forever wonder what might have been.
Until then, with some twists and turns, it had gone according to script.
The Giants, double-digit underdogs, had given the Patriots all they could handle, played a tough, smart, at times ferocious game, and were clinging to a three-point lead. Their defensive front four had made life miserable for quarterback Tom Brady, beating him up in a way that hadn't happened at any other time during the 16-0 regular season or the two playoff victories that followed.
Brady was missing passes he'd normally make, he was uneasy in the pocket where he'd normally be calm.
But then late in the fourth quarter, with the game on the line, he gathered himself and did what he has done so often, including twice before in Super Bowls, methodically marching his team down the field for the decisive points and then freshening up a bit before lifting the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
When Brady hit Randy Moss with the touchdown pass that put the Pats up 14-10 with 2:42 to go, New England's destiny seemed complete. And when the Giants were pinned deep on the ensuing kickoff, and Manning struggled through the first plays around the two-minute warning, it certainly looked like a man had gotten the better of a boy.
With New York scrimmaging third-and-five on their own 44-yard line with 59 seconds to go, came what seemed like the coup de grace. The centre of the Giants offensive line collapsed, the Patriots' pass rush encircled Manning, and in the scrum, it was inevitable he'd go down.
Instead, somehow he squirted loose — those Manning boys aren't exactly known for their nimble feet — and threw up a prayer that was answered 32 yards downfield by a leaping back-up wide receiver named David Tyree.
After that miracle moment, the Patriots' spell of invincibility was broken for the first time all season. Not that there weren't a few tense times left before Plaxico Burress hauled in the winning touchdown catch with 39 seconds to play, but by then you certainly believed it could happen.
"It was an unbelievable game," Manning said afterwards, "and an unbelievable feeling."
Now, they'll be naming stuff after him in Manhattan, he'll never have to pay for another restaurant meal, his nemesis, former teammate Tiki Barber, will be laying low, and as a happy byproduct he gives the NFL a feel-good story at a very opportune time.
The Giants' miracle Super Bowl victory blotted out memories of what had turned into the messiest championship weekend since the one when Eugene Robinson of the Atlanta Falcons felt the need to seek out paid female companionship on the eve of the big game.
Thanks to newspaper stories, tales told by a former Patriots employee and some rank opportunism from U.S. senator Arlen (Single Bullet Theory) Specter, the Spygate story has legs again. (What it could possibly mean to the U.S. congress is a whole lot harder to know, given that, unlike baseball, they don't hold the legislative hammer over football that comes with a limited anti-trust exemption.)
With a New England win, the asterisk police would have been out in full force this morning, and even with the loss, they'll still give a go.
But now that's really yesterday's news.
And anyone who loves the game is left to marvel once again that whatever the best-laid plans and genius strategies, no matter who taped what when, it can still come down to beating hearts, flesh and blood, a pass that should never have been thrown being caught, and someone's little brother seizing the moment to be big.
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