Rallying from behind to score the game-winning touchdown with less than a minute remaining, the New York Giants have won Super Bowl XLVI.
After a hard-fought 60 minutes of football, the Giants came out on top, beating the Patriots, 21-17.
It was a back-and-forth battle that saw the Giants jump out to an early 9-0 lead, only to have the Patriots storm back late in the second quarter to go up 10-9 at halftime. New England extended its lead to 17-9 in the third quarter and appeared poised to take control.
But the Giants wouldn’t go down without a fight. Two third-quarter field goals from Lawrence Tynes made the score 17-15 New England, and then both teams’ defenses stiffened: There was no more scoring until Ahmad Bradshaw ran in from six yards out with 57 seconds left.
The Patriots let Bradshaw score that touchdown because they wouldn’t have been able to stop the Giants from simply running out the clock and kicking the game-winning field goal as time expired. Some coaches would have decided to take a knee there, and some running backs would have gone down at the 1-yard line, but Tom Coughlin and Bradshaw decided to punch it in.
That left Tom Brady and the Patriots’ offense 57 seconds to win it, and they did their best. Brady converted on a fourth-and-16 pass and marched the Patriots down the field into a spot where he had a shot to win the Super Bowl with a Hail Mary pass in the end zone on the game’s final play. But the Patriots’ desperation pass fell incomplete, and the Giants are the champions of the football world.