We noted before last night’s game that Patriots linebacker Brandon Spikes was rather fired up to play in his first Super Bowl.
It’s no surprise, then, that he wasn’t as thrilled about allowing the game’s go-ahead touchdown go right by him late in the fourth quarter.
“It killed me,” said Spikes of the decision to let Ahmad Bradshaw score to give the ball back to the Patriots offense. “When the call came in to let them score, I was kind of like, ‘What? I’m here to do my job and it’s my job to play defense and let them score?’ It was tough. It definitely was tough.”
It was a gutsy choice by Bill Belichick, but the right one. The obvious one. We doubt that many head coaches would have had the stones to do the same thing, although Mike Holmgren also famously did it in the Super Bowl.
There were no easy choices for Belichick at that point. Either watch Lawrence Tynes attempt a chip shot field goal for the win or give one of the game’s greatest all-time quarterbacks a shot with the ball in his hand with under a minute left.
“I respect Tom Brady and the New England Patriots,” Brandon Jacobs told the Associated Press. “He does a great job with the guys he has. But if that was Drew Brees or Aaron Rodgers on the other side, with those big play outfits, 57 seconds would have been plenty enough time for those guys.”
Jacobs pointed out the Patriots struggle to push the ball down the field.
“They needed a helluva lot more than 57 seconds to be able to win the football game,” Jacobs said. “So I wasn’t worried at all.”
Belichick’s job is to give his team the best chance to win. Letting the Giants score did that.