Just what you expected, right?
Super Bowl XXXVIII between the New England Patriots and Carolina Panthers was supposed to be a defensive struggle. It was supposed to be low scoring. It was supposed to be boring. It was none of those things.
Adam Vinatieri, the hero of New England’s Super Bowl victory two years ago, did it again with a 41-yard field goal with four seconds left that lifted the Patriots to a thrilling 32-29 victory, their 15th consecutive win.
Vinatieri won Super Bowl XXXVI with a 48-yard field goal as time expired. He had missed twice Sunday night, and his only career misses indoors were at Reliant Stadium.
Tom Brady earned his second Pete Rozelle Trophy as the Super Bowl’s Most Valuable Player and became the youngest quarterback to win two championships by passing for 354 yards and three touchdowns on a game-record 32 completions (in 48 attempts).
New England started the winning drive at its 40 thanks to John Kasay’s kick out of bounds. Brady, providing an encore to the drive he orchestrated to defeat the Rams in 2002, needed 1:04 to direct the Patriots 37 yards in six plays to the winning points. “Give a lot of credit to Carolina. That’s the toughest team we’ve played all season,” Brady said.
“They got the ball last,” Carolina coach John Fox said.
“If you ever give us any time, look out,” Vinatieri said. “I looked up and the last kick was going right down the middle.”
The Patriots were 2 minutes 44 seconds from capturing the Vince Lombardi Trophy again after Brady’s 1-yard touchdown pass to Mike Vrabel and Kevin Faulk’s 2-point conversion run gave them a 29-22 lead.
The touchdown toss atoned for an end zone interception on New England’s previous possession that led to the Panthers taking a 1-point lead on Jake Delhomme’s record 85-yard touchdown pass to Muhsin Muhammad.
But Carolina hadn’t quit all season, and it wasn’t about to start in its last game. With Rodney Harrison out of the game with what he said later was a broken right arm, Delhomme picked apart New England’s defense and tied the game on a 12-yard touchdown pass to Ricky Proehl, the former Rams receiver who tied Super Bowl XXXVI at 17 with a touchdown catch in the fourth quarter before Vinatieri won it.
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Edited by the Sports staff of RedEye
