Brady helped then-Giants defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo plot his game plan when the New England Patriots quarterback was caught on video wearing a protective boot for an injured ankle as he attempted to slip into Manhattan to visit his future wife, supermodel Gisele Bundchen, two weeks before Super Bowl XLII.
Fast forward to Sunday:
VIDEO: Writers' Super Bowl predictions
VIDEO: A Belichick/Brady dynasty?
MORE: All the latest Super Bowl news
The three biggest differences in Giants vs. Patriots, the Super Bowl XLVI sequel?
USA TODAY Sports on Twitter!
To get the latest sports news from USA TODAY, including game results, columns and features, follow us on Twitter at @USATODAYSports.
Brady's right ankle is healthy. He and six other veterans seek vengeance on the Giants for ruining their quest for the first 19-0 season. And Super Bowl XLII MVP Eli Manning is the hotter quarterback than three-time Super Bowl winner Brady.
"Our perception of Eli Manning is dramatically different now than heading into that 2007 Super Bowl," says CBS analyst Phil Simms, the Super Bowl XXI-winning Giants quarterback. "Back then, it was, 'Oh, my gosh, how does Eli measure up to Tom Brady?'
"We aren't hearing that this game."
Manning fired a record 15 fourth-quarter touchdowns (18 including playoffs) and has thrown eight TDs with one interception in three postseason road wins.
"The season Eli's had, his playoff run, how he and the Giants hung in there against the (San Francisco) 49ers defense. ? There's something about football when you get beat up, battered and still persevere the way Eli did in that (20-17 overtime) championship game win," Simms says. "People view you in a different light."
Four years ago, the Giants pass rush teed off on Brady, knowing the quarterback was unable to make his trademark sideways glides to avert up-the-middle pressure.
Spagnuolo flexed defensive end Justin Tuck to tackle, and New York recorded five sacks, knocked down Brady nine other times and stunned a record-setting offense in a 17-14 upset.
"I thought Justin Tuck was the MVP," ESPN Monday Night Football analyst Ron Jaworski says. "They moved Tuck around, got him on (guard) Logan Mankins. He's an all-pro player. But he had a difficult time with Tuck's power, speed and quickness.
"They got great pressure."
Now Brady & Co. look to avenge what former Patriots wide receiver Troy Brown calls "the worst loss of the Brady-Bill Belichick era."
"Having been a player on that 18-1 team, you know these guys want Patriots payback," says Brown, now a Comcast New England analyst. "Not that you can get that ring back. But winning can somewhat redeem that loss."
So seven players on New England's active roster have added motivation.
"The Patriots have a couple of things going their way this time. The biggest is they lost to the Giants in that Super Bowl," Simms says. "Tom Brady didn't play as well as he wanted against the Baltimore Ravens in the championship game.
"You can't duplicate that revenge feeling when you lost your last Super Bowl."
Manning has beaten Brady the last two meetings. He threw for 4,933 yards and 29 TDs to carry his injury-depleted team for much of a 12-7 season.
"The question coming into this year was about Eli and how he answered the question about being an elite quarterback," Fox analyst Troy Aikman says. "How Eli answered is irrelevant.
"The fact someone felt it was OK to ask is really the bigger story. No one at the start of the season would have asked Aaron Rodgers, Tom or Drew Brees, 'Hey, are you elite?'
"That question won't be asked again the rest of Eli's career."
Last time, the Giants rallied around their 12-point underdog status.
"This time around, the Giants will have equal billing," Aikman says.
New faces on both sides
Super Bowl XLVI is a rematch in name only, considering that only 22 players among 106 remain.
"This doesn't even resemble the Giants-Patriots Super Bowl we saw four years ago," Simms says. "New England has changed its offense dramatically in style and personnel with featuring the tight ends, Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez.
"The Giants defense is still the same. It's still all about their pass rush.
"Last time, the Giants were the hunters. This time, they're the hunted."
It will be the 13th Super Bowl played between teams that met in the regular season. In the previous 12, the regular-season winners went 5-7 in the rematch. The loser of the regular-season game has rebounded to take the Super Bowl the last three times.
Consider the 15-3 Patriots have won 10 in a row since losing to the Giants when Brady threw two interceptions and lost a fumble.
"These teams played this season, so that's more a relevant factor than the rematch of their Super Bowl four years ago," former NFL coach and Dallas Cowboys running back Dan Reeves said. "It's so difficult to beat the same team twice in a year. It's all psychological stuff you battle."
There have been two previous Super Bowl rematches within a four-season span. The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Cowboys 21-17 in Super Bowl X after the 1975 season, then 35-31 in Super Bowl XIII. The Aikman-led Cowboys routed the Buffalo Bills 52-17 in Super Bowl XXVII, then 30-13 in Super Bowl XXVIII.
"It's the same quarterbacks, Eli and Tom, same teams, but so much is different," former Steelers running back Rocky Bleier said. "You can't go back four years and learn anything from how the Patriots played then.
"The Patriots were going for the perfect season and lost. So it adds fuel for the motivational fire Belichick can use."
Bleier said there was no carryover when his "Steel Curtain" Steelers met the Cowboys again.
"It wasn't as if it was a brand-new experience the second time," says Bleier, who owns a Pittsburgh construction company. "We knew the caliber of their players and quarterback, Roger Staubach.
"The difference during the 1970s, the core of our teams were pretty much the same because there wasn't free agency. Now you see a lot of turnover in four years with these two."
Similar but different is the theme running through that 1994 Cowboys-Bills XXVIII Super Bowl encore as well.
"There isn't a tremendous amount of advantage in a Super Bowl rematch," former Bills coach and Hall of Famer Marv Levy says. "You have knowledge of the team and their schemes. You have a little bit of a running start on game planning. But I don't know that one team will have any advantage because of the last time."
Brady chasing icons
Aikman feared the law of averages catching the Cowboys against the Bills, who went to four consecutive Super Bowls beginning with their Super Bowl XXV loss to the Giants.
"We played the Bills the first time, they were going into their third straight Super Bowl," Aikman says. "We were like, 'Wow, how do they go into their third straight Super Bowl and not win?' Then they came back in their fourth.
"We were confident we could win. But I remember thinking how tough that game was going to be, just the odds a team is going to be in a Super Bowl four straight times and not win."
With a win, Brady would join boyhood idol Joe Montana and Pittsburgh's Terry Bradshaw as quarterbacks with four Super Bowl rings.
"It's incredible," Brady says. "You watch this game; I was a kid growing up, a 49er fan, so I got to watch a lot of Super Bowls.
"You pinch yourself to get this opportunity. I'm privileged to be part of an incredible organization to play with a great group of teammates."
Hard to conceive Brady losing a second Super Bowl to the same team.
"If Tom gets that fourth ring, it would be hard to discount him as the greatest quarterback ever," Jaworski says.
With a win Sunday, Manning would join the ranks of two-time Super Bowl winners such as Hall of Famers John Elway, Staubach and Bart Starr.
"A second Super Bowl puts you in the conversation for the Hall of Fame," says Hall of Famer Aikman, a three-time Super Bowl winner.
"So there's a lot that comes with that second ring."
Manning, 31, is armed with the more explosive passing game against a 31st-ranked defense that has lined up 16 different players in its secondary.
"The Patriots aren't as good as those three world championship teams, particularly on defense," Jaworski says.
As for Brady?
The clock is ticking at 34.
"You just don't know when you're going to get back again," Aikman says.
Source: http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomSports-TopStories/~3/0p_cI0QTc7M/1
No comments:
Post a Comment