GLENDALE, Ariz. - They harassed him, harried him, hounded him, and hit him. They did things no defense had done to Tom Brady and the New England Patriots all season. They came from all angles, all positions, ranging from cornerback Corey Webster to linebacker Kawika Mitchell to defensive ends Michael Strahan, Osi Umenyiora, and Justin Tuck.
For three quarters last night in Super Bowl XLII at University of Phoenix Stadium, the New York Giants defense more than carried its share of the load, limiting the Patriots to one second-quarter touchdown and almost no offensive flow. But then the Giants ran into a different team, a different Brady, the Brady who had carried the Patriots to 28 come-from-behind wins in his NFL career, three in the Super Bowl.
And when Brady threw his first touchdown pass of the evening, a 6-yarder to Randy Moss to give the Patriots a 14-10 lead with 2:42 left, it looked like a wasted effort by the Giants defense.
Game over?
Not this time. The whole tenor of the game changed in the final minutes when Eli Manning drove the Giants 83 yards in 12 plays, throwing the winning 13-yard touchdown pass to Plaxico Burress with 35 seconds remaining to give the Giants a stunning 17-14 victory.
After stopping the Patriots one last time, the Giants defense could finally rest - with a championship no one outside of the New York locker room thought was possible.
"We shocked the world, but not ourselves," said linebacker Antonio Pierce, speaking for a defense that held the Patriots to their lowest point total of the season.
"If you have a quarterback who loves to throw the ball, we're going to hit him," said Strahan, the emotional leader of a unit that led the NFL with 52 sacks, but felt it was getting no respect.
From the start last night, the Giants gave Brady and the Patriots all they could handle. "We were stopping the best offense in football," said Strahan. "We were making them look mediocre. Of course, they were surprised."
Brady was sacked five times and hurried throughout as the Patriots offense never seemed in synch.
"Their offensive line wasn't prepared for what our defense could do," said Giants wide receiver Amani Toomer. "[The defense] was hitting everybody the minute they touched the ball. They were hit like they have never been hit before."
The strategy was to get to Brady and prevent him from finding a flow. "We knew we had to get to Tom Brady," said Strahan. "Osi came up to me at breakfast and said, 'Do you realize if we don't hit Brady, we don't win the game?' We put a lot of pressure on ourselves. Our interior guys Tuck and Jay Alford put a lot of pressure on Brady."
Tuck said the key was not only getting to Brady, but to keep him from getting comfortable.
"We knew to win the game we had to get on him early," said Tuck, who had two sacks, including one at the end of the first half when he forced a Brady fumble. "We never let him get in an offensive rhythm. He made some errant throws and held the ball a little longer than he normally does. That's a combination of pressure in his face and the secondary doing a great job of locking down all of the receivers and really doing a very good job."
The best the Patriots could do through three quarters was a 56-yard drive that Laurence Maroney finished with a 1-yard touchdown dive on the first play of the second quarter.
And that was it, until the final three minutes. Manning had proved his mettle by putting the Giants on top, 10-7, with a 5-yard TD pass to David Tyree early in the fourth.
After Brady's go-ahead TD drive, the Giants appeared to be cast in the same loser's role they played in the regular-season finale, when Brady led the Patriots to a fourth-quarter comeback and 38-35 victory.
Not this time. In the end, the Patriots couldn't run enough (45 yards rushing), they couldn't pass enough (266 yards), and they couldn't score enough.
"We didn't get into the end zone enough," said Brady. "And that got us beat."
"It was our time," said Strahan.
Mark Blaudschun can be reached at blaudschun@globe.com.
