The perfect season disappeared in the final seconds and the story, instead, became the upset of the ages, but either way it was going to be a historic Super Bowl game.
Fox Television fell short of the perfection that most thought would be achieved by the New England Patriots, but it nevertheless gave the game the high level of coverage that it deserved.
The telecast was never better than in the final seconds, when New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning found Plaxico Burress in the end zone for the winning touchdown.
The cameras went close to Burress's celebration, cut back to Manning, then gave us the reaction of the Patriots leaving the field and finally brought us back to Burress.
The sequence told the story brilliantly and also captured the drama of the moment.
There were plenty of moments in this remarkable game, which will produce gold for the television networks when the audience figures are released on Monday. It will hardly be a surprise if Fox and, in Canada, CTV draw record Super Bowl audiences.
For Fox, most of the boxes were checked off.
Throughout the game, the pictures produced by the live camera were followed by close-ups and then the replay, all of which established a rhythm that gave structure to the telecast and provided a comfort level to the viewer.
The cameras also gave the game context by taking us to the sidelines, into the crowds and occasionally to the suites where the celebrities were hanging out.
After Manning failed to get a play off in time, Fox showed us the reaction of brother, Peyton, from a suite in the stadium. He was doing a circular motion with his hand to signal that time was running out.
The cameras were consistently tight to the players on the field and at the sidelines. In one replay, we were taken in close to Manning's face as he backpedalled into the pocket. In another, the pictures told the story of Patriots receiver Randy Moss, sitting on the bench in the first quarter without a reception and clearly in anguish. It foreshadowed the game's eventual developments.
Play-by-play announcer Joe Buck had a good night, aside from neglecting to mention the Patriots' bid to go undefeated until late in the fourth quarter.
He immediately recognized that New York's Chase Blackburn was slow getting off the field before the Patriots called for, and won, a video review in the third quarter.
Troy Aikman is not a dynamic game analyst, but he performed a workmanlike job. He didn't miss anything and was occasionally outspoken, criticizing the pass coverage of both teams.
The pregame show kept its focus on football in the first hour and then moved into showbiz content with the red carpet interviews by Ryan Seacrest, who said to Giants co-owner Steve Tisch, “I'm assuming you're rooting for the Giants, yes?”
Terry Bradshaw is tedious over four hours, but his happy, good old boy act seemed to put Patriots quarterback Tom Brady at ease for their pretaped sit down – not that it produced anything of substance. Brady's injured ankle was not discussed seriously.
Jimmy Johnson's softball interview with Pats coach Bill Belichick, his pal, did little to enlighten us on Spygate (the secretive taping of the New York Jets in September) but it did humanize the usually grim, robot-like Belichick, who smiled a few times and seemed relaxed.
Fox, of course, used the time for heavy-duty network promoting. Actor Hugh Laurie appeared on the red carpet for no other reason than to promote House, which aired on Fox after the game. Business anchor Neil Cavuto reported on the finances of the Super Bowl, all of which was old news. And Fox's American Idol got a full workout, with the presence of Idol host Seacrest, Idol judge Paula Abdul singing and last year's Idol winner Jordin Sparks performing the U.S. anthem.
A final note: We knocked NFL Network for cutting away from a question to Belichick about Spygate on Friday, but the network's Seth Palansky says it wasn't deliberate. “We had [Giants coach] Tom Coughlin on our set in the media centre and we were already behind eight minutes,” he said.
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