February 5, 2012: Manning to Manningham

INDIANAPOLIS - It didn't quite have the shock of The Helmet Catch. Nothing really could. How can you beat a player pinning a miracle catch against his helmet, then holding on to it as a defender is desperately clawing at it? You can't. But you can come close. And when Eli Manning hit Mario Manningham down the sideline during Super Bowl XLVI, dropping the ball perfectly between two defenders who seemed to have position on Manningham, you could almost hear Patriot fans saying "it happened again?"

What happened was another Giants-Patriots Super Bowl, another fourth-quarter lead for the Patriots in such a Super Bowl, and another late-fourth quarter comeback for the Giants. After the Giants ended the Patriots perfect season in Super Bowl XLII, they met again on February 5, 2012, and played another heart-pounding game.

The Patriots took a 17-9 lead into halftime of the rematch, but the game really picked up late in the fourth quarter, after the Giants had cut that lead to 17-15. At the 4:05 mark, Tom Brady found Wes Welker for what should have been a first down on a 2nd-and-11 play, but Welker dropped the ball. Instead of facing the prospects of taking their final time out, the Giants instead got the clock stopped and, after getting another incomplete pass on the next play, forced a punt.

Taking over at their own 12 with 3:48 left, Manning found his man. As Manningham drifted down the sideline, Manning threw a perfect pass between two defenders. Manningham caught the ball with his arms outstretched, tiptoed in bounds, and held on. It was a stunning catch, a perfectly executed play all around. And it left the Patriots stunned. They challenged the play, losing one of their time outs when it was upheld, then tried to hold on.

But they didn't hold on. Instead, the Giants eventually drove to get to first and goal at the 7. After a first-down run for one yard, the Patriots used their second time out, and they were faced with a dilemma. If they still had two remaining time outs, they could try to stop the Giants, using both their time outs to stop the clock, and hopefully force a field goal with enough time left to respond. Instead, they had used a time out on the challenge, meaning the one they had left wasn't enough to stop the Giants from draining nearly all of the clock. So they did what they had to do: They let the Giants score.

That decision had a precedence in Super Bowl history, but the Giants were still caught off guard. When Ahmad Bradshaw unexpectedly saw a wide-open path to the end zone, he seemed to forget what to do. Remembering at the last moment that he was supposed to let the clock run down, Bradshaw stopped running at the 2-yard line, but his momentum carried him backwards into the end zone for what had to be the first accidental touchdown in Super Bowl history.

So the Giants might not have wanted to score on that play, but it's not like a touchdown was bad. Trailing 21-17, the Patriots now had to drive the length of the field for a touchdown in less than a minute and with only one time out. They only made it as far as midfield before being forced to try a final-play Hail Mary, one that missed connecting by less than a yard.

For the second time in four years, the Giants had upset the Patriots in the Super Bowl. This time, instead of a Helmet Catch, the catalyst was Manning to Manningham, a perfect pass and catch on the sideline.

February 3, 2008: Not quite perfect

GLENDALE, Ari. - How many things have to go exactly right in order for a football team to go undefeated? Everybody has to stay healthy, all those weird bounces the ball can take have to go in that team's favor, that team has to rise to the occasion throughout the season as they become a bigger and bigger target.

But perhaps most importantly, to go undefeated, you have to go an entire season without making the kind of killer mistakes that can cost you a game. And if you make such a mistake, you cannot let the other team capitalize.

Only two NFL teams have entered the Super Bowl undefeated, and both made potentially devestating mistakes late in the fourth quarter. The 1972 Dolphins had a scare when kicker Garo Yapremian tried to pass on a blocked field goal, fumbling a ball that led to the Washington touchdown that cut the Dolphins' lead to 14-7. Fortunately for Yapremian, the Dolphins held on to win the game and complete the perfect season.

For the 2007 Patriots, their killer mistake came with 1:17 left in the game. New England had just taken a 14-10 lead with 2:42 left in the fourth quarter, and the Giants were slowly starting to drive down field. As the Giants approached midfield Eli Manning threw a pass that seemed destined to be intercepted, but New England's Asante Samuel let the ball slip through his fingers to fall incomplete.

Now, defenders drop interceptions all the time. It's why they play defense instead of offense. There have been countless dropped interceptions that have led to nothing in NFL history, and there was no reason that a team like the Patriots should let one ruin their season. But this one felt different. It felt different because of the ease with which the Giants had driven downfield to score a touchdown on their previous drive, and it felt different because of how close the Giants had played the Patriots in the final regular season game. There were undoubtedly many Patriots fans who looked at each other after Manning's pass slipped through Samuel's fingers and thought "uh oh."

Yapremian's mistake has lived on in NFL history despite the fact that the Dolphins won that Super Bowl to finish undefeated. Samuel's dropped interception, though, has started to fade from the memory, mostly because of what happened on the next play.

Manning avoided the first sack attempt - by Adalius Thomas - by simply stepping up in the pocket. He squeezed out of the grasps of Jarvis Green and Richard Seymour by ... well, I don't think even Manning himself knows how he got out of that one. Nobody does. We just know that he somehow spun out of the grip of two players, stepped back, and fired it deep downfield, where David Tyree leapt up to catch it, then pinned it against his helmet as Rodney Harrison desperately tried to wrestle the ball away.

The "Helmet Catch" will go down as one of the most famous plays in Super Bowl history. It's true that it didn't officially win the game - Manning's pass to Plaxico Burress a few plays later did that - but it was over at that point. Anybody who saw Manning's escape and Tyree's catch knew that the Patriots' incredible run of luck was over, and that there was no way the Giants were going to be denied.

Manning's escape and Tyree's catch are going to be what live on about this game long after all the participants have retired (In fact, Tyree has already retired, with the Helmet Catch being his final catch in his NFL career). But that stunning, once-in-a-lifetime play would never have happened if Asante Samuel had just held on to the ball.

January 21, 2007: The Colts conquer Brady

INDIANAPOLIS - The whispers surely started at halftime. If Peyton Manning hears the whispers, if he has demons, there would be no ignoring them right now. They'd be out in full force. "He'll never win the big one." "He's the next Dan Marino." "He'll always be all stats and no glory."

"He can't win the big one."

Trailing the Patriots 21-6 at halftime of the AFC Championship Game, Peyton Manning and the Colts were faced once again with the realization that their season would end against New England. It was the same old story for the Colts - great regular season, disappointing playoffs.

But not this year.

It only took the Colts 11 minutes to come back to tie the game, as Manning led them on a pair of 76-yard drives that both ended in touchdowns. Game on.

The Patriots responded, as they always do. There was a reason they had won three championships in the previous six seasons. Tom Brady drove them right into the end zone, although an 80-yard kick return helped. The Patriots were back on top entering the fourth quarter.

Oh, the fourth quarter. The quarter where the defenses were helpless against the onslaught of the two quarterbacks. Peyton Manning, so close to his first Super Bowl, and Tom Brady, the three-time champion who would never fold under the pressure of this game. Manning and Brady spent the rest of the quarter trading scoring drives, showing why they were the two best quarterbacks in the game.

Manning answered first, a 67-yard drive that almost ended in disaster when Dominic Rhodes fumbled at the 1-yard line. But center Jeff Saturday saved the day, recovering for the tying touchdown. It was Brady's turn, and he drove the Patriots down inside the Colts 15. For once, the Colts stiffened, and New England kicked a field goal. Two minutes later, Indy tied it again with a field goal; it took New England less than two minutes to kick another one.

And then the defenses woke up. Getting the ball back with 3:49 left, the Colts could do nothing and had to punt. You could only imagine what was going through Manning's mind as the ball flew away. Was that his last chance? Did he just kick away another shot at a Super Bowl?

But no. The Colts stepped up, stopping the Patriots cold. New England could only take a minute off the clock before they punted the ball back. And so Manning was handed the ball, 80 yards from his first Super Bowl berth, and 2:17 to get there.

He didn't need nearly that long. It only took him 19 seconds to move the ball 70 yards, as three clutch throws and a penalty put the Colts in great position. Three plays later, Joseph Addai ran it in, giving the Colts their first lead of the game.

Now, no matter what happened, Manning couldn't be blamed for this one. He had given the Colts the lead with 1:00 to play in the AFC Championship Game. If they lost, it wouldn't be his fault. But he certainly wasn't thinking about that as the Patriots put a scare into the entire state of Indiana by driving to the Colts' 45-yard line. But finally - Brady's pass with 17 seconds left was intercepted. The Colts celebrated - they had finally beaten the Patriots. They were off to the Super Bowl, and there would be no doubt how that one would turn out.

December 12, 1982: The Snow Plow Game

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. - In this game, the weather was winning. Playing in a heavy snowstorm, the Dolphins and the Patriots were scoreless deep into the fourth quarter. The snow and wind had made footing treacherous, if not impossible. At time outs, the Patriots officials had been sending out a snowplow onto the field to clear off the yard lines so game officials could have some kind of idea where the field boundaries were.

With the game looking like it was destined to end up as a scoreless tie, the Patriots found themselves in field goal position. New England called time out, giving a chance for kicker Matt Cavanaugh to try to clear a spot off the turf from which to kick. He even resorted to dropping to his knees to try to clear a spot with his hands.

During the time out, Mark Henderson, the snow plow driver, was clearing off the line of scrimmage so officials could mark the ball. At the last moment, Henderson unexpectedly swerved into the backfield, clearing off a spot right where Cavanaugh would be kicking from. The Patriots were stunned at first, but then started applauding Henderson after realizing he had done it on purpose.

Miami coach Don Shula was furious and immediately started protesting the move, but there was nothing in the rulebooks expressly forbidding it. Meanwhile, with a clean surface from which to kick from, Cavanaugh made the field goal to put the Patriots ahead 3-0. With the conditions as they were, that's how the score remained.

Shula eventually lodged an official protest, saying the kick shouldn't count. Commissioner Pete Rozelle agreed with Shula but informed him that without a specific rule to cite, he couldn't overturn the play. The kick stood, but the rules were changed after the season to forbid the use of snowplows on the field during a game. The change came too late for the Dolphins.

Henderson, meanwhile, became a part of Patriots lore. A convicted buglar who was at the game on work release, he later said that he didn't have a problem clearing off the spot, saying "what are they going to do, throw me in jail?" The snowplow he used currently hangs from the ceiling at the Patriots Hall of Fame.

December 8, 1980: Three words

MIAMI - New England kicker John Smith was warming up on the sideline, then started trotting out onto the field. There were two seconds left on the clock, and Smith was about to try a game-winning field goal when the announcers started talking about something else. How could they? It was a 13-13 game with two seconds left - this wasn't the time for any kind of breaking news.

It wasn't just any breaking news, though. It was so much more. It was one of those types of news reports that are impossible to believe as they're being reported, that people refuse to believe even as they realize the words they're hearing were true. The announcement became one of those generation-defining, where-were-you types of moments, something that made the game being shown become, in one instant, both instantly irrelevant and completely unforgettable.

Howard Cosell's words were measured, careful like they always were, but they still painted a surreal, hard-to-believe picture; John Lennon ... shot ... apartment building ... hospital ... what? It didn't make sense. What was happening? Then Cosell said the final three words, the words that hung in the air forever like a bold newspaper headline, the words that left a shockwave across America: "Dead On Arrival."

Dead on arrival. The three words that left an entire generation with the realization that their hero, their inspiration, was gone. The three words that had an effect across the country, across the world, and that would linger on in history far beyond anything that happened in that game. Cosell's three words have lived on as the three most famous ever uttered during a football game. Many millions of people first heard about Lennon's death while watching the game, putting Cosell in a similar place in American history as Walter Cronkite 17 years before.

John Lennon and the Beatles defined the musical landscape in the 1960s and beyond. Howard Cosell and Monday Night Football changed the sports television landscape forever. It's sad, but it's fitting that the two are now forever linked in American consciousness. Linked together by three words left hanging in the cold December air.

The announcement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gcdz1IRVoM