Refresh my memory on what you saw.
But I agree, they were up 17-9, had all the momentum with the Giants on the ropes and they choked it away.
It was the 2nd to last drive; it began at the New England 8 yard line. Patriots went to hurry-up. Brady was dinking and dunking them down the field.
1.
Tom Brady pass complete short right to
Wes Welker for 5 yards
2.
Tom Brady pass complete short right to
Danny Woodhead for 19 yards
3.
BenJarvus Green-Ellis left end for 3 yards
4.
Wes Welker left end for 11 yards
5.
Danny Woodhead left tackle for 1 yard
6.
Tom Brady pass complete short right to
Rob Gronkowski for 6 yards
7.
Tom Brady pass complete short left to
Aaron Hernandez for 4 yards
So the Patriots are running hurry-up, with the lead already 17-15, they get a 1st down at the Giants 43 with 4 minutes left in the Super Bowl, a TD basically wins the Super Bowl, and what do they do? They go out of hurry-up. They bring in a jumbo package, 1 WR. They run it with BGE and they lose 3 yards. On the same drive they already ran the ball 2x for a total of 4 yards. They've had decent success with the pass. Brady had made 4 straight completions. Remember, this is the game in which Brady broke NFL records with 17 straight completions. The Giants couldn't defend the short stuff. They were gassed. So here we are, and Brady is going on another run to end the Super Bowl, and we go back to the run and end up at 2nd and long. The Giants are on the sideline mumbling that they can't stop him. Welker then drops the pass. The refs say, that would've been the game right there. Then Branch does the same on 3rd down. We had the Giants on the rope--and we went to something that wasn't working all game. Brady was on fire, diagnosing the defense, taking what they were giving, spreading them out, going hurry-up. So we brought in a jumbo package and told the Giants we were going to run. They stuffed it.
The weirdest thing about this sequence is that something similar happened in the regular season game against the Giants so you'd think the Patriots would've learned from it. Check this out:
November 24-20 loss to the Giants in 2011.
4th Qtr Drive #1:
1. T. Brady pass short left to R.Gronkowski to NE 26 for 6 yards (A.Ross). NE 12-Brady now has 37,278 career pass yards, passing Donovan McNabb for 16th place all-time.
2. T. Brady pass short middle to W.Welker to NYG 47 for 27 yards (M.Boley).
3. D.Woodhead right tackle to NYG 44 for 3 yards (L.Joseph). direct snap
4. T.Brady pass deep right to W.Welker pushed ob at NYG 16 for 28 yards (K.Phillips). NE 83-Welker 20th career 100-yard game.
5. T.Brady pass short middle to A.Hernandez to NYG 5 for 11 yards (K.Phillips) [O.Umenyiora]. NYG-C.Canty was injured during the play.
6. T.Brady pass short right to A.Hernandez for 5 yards, TOUCHDOWN. NE 12-Brady 24th straight regular season game with a TD pass, extends Patriots record.
The Giants then had 5 plays, 22 yards and punted back.
New England got the ball back at their own 21 with 11:13.
Drive #2:
1.
Wes Welker left end for 13 yards
2.
Tom Brady pass complete deep middle to
Rob Gronkowski for 27 yards
3.
Tom Brady pass incomplete deep left intended for
Chad Johnson
4.
Tom Brady pass complete short middle to
Rob Gronkowski for 6 yards
5.
Tom Brady pass complete short left to
Wes Welker for 9 yards
So, we're passing the ball down to the Giants 28 yard line, we have the lead in the game, we just scored a TD on the previous drive, and now we have 8 minutes left on the clock.
So, we run BGE for a 2 yard gain, and on 2nd and 3rd and long, can't complete long passes to Welker and Chad Johnson.
Giants get the ball and go ahead on a TD.
We struck back after that quickly, and they scored the final TD.
These sequences don't look like much, and maybe they are not memorable, but when the offense is relentlessly moving the ball downfield through small gains, the defense gets tired. The Giants were gassed. They couldn't defend. We left them off the hook with a mind boggling jumbo package.