By Sally Jenkins
Sunday, December 30, 2007

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J.

Maybe it's enough to say that it was an honest effort. At the close of a year of disheartening sports scandals, the New York Giants and the New England Patriots gave us all a gift: they refused to tank. With nothing at stake except a record, a piece of history, and some personal honor, they played to win. The result wasn't just history, it was a beauty.

After months of investigations, corruptions, fallen idols and dirty referees, it was difficult to trust even the score of a tennis match. You could be pardoned if you had somewhat jaundiced, sour expectations for this season-ending game between the Patriots and the Giants. It need not have amounted to much: both teams had clinched NFL playoff spots, and had every excuse to rest their starters and to cheat the audience. Instead, the starters actually started -- and Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and the Giants' Eli Manning were still dueling at the bitter finish of the game. A crowd of 79,110 rose to its feet when Manning struck Plaxico Burress with a 52-yard pass on just the second play from scrimmage, signaling that the Giants meant business. The crowd was still on its feet late in the fourth quarter of this electrifying contest, as Brady rallied the Patriots from 12 points down, their biggest deficit of the season, to pull out a 38-35 victory.

The Patriots' achievement, becoming only the second modern NFL team to finish a regular season undefeated, was purely ceremonial. But it was also an epic feat, one that hadn't been accomplished since the 1972 Dolphins went unbeaten through the Super Bowl. "It was kind of a tricky game," said Brady, "because it doesn't mean that much, and it means a lot." The Patriots didn't really accomplish anything except a perfect 16-0 mark, an NFL record for wins. And they might have had more to lose than gain, by playing their starters for four quarters and risking injury on the eve of the playoffs. But afterwards Patriots coach Bill Belichick quoted his mentor, Bill Parcells, who once said, "There are no meaningless games when you're playing in them."

Belichick added, "It meant something to us. And it obviously meant something to the Giants. It may not have meant something to you, but if you're a competitor, it means something. I think that was reflected out there."

The Giants didn't particularly need this win, either. But they played as if they had "everything to gain and nothing at all to lose," as coach Tom Coughlin put it. The effort cost them three starters who left the game with injuries -- but they may have gained a whole new sense of self-respect. They pushed the Patriots harder than any other team this season, imperiling their quest for perfection, and proved that they are a team surging into the postseason. Manning, who was to date an uneven young quarterback, may have come of age as he completed 22 of 32 passes for 251 yards and four touchdowns. Instead of Manning struggling to keep up with Brady, it was Brady who at times struggled to answer the relentless drives of his counterpart. In the end, however, it was Brady who made the play of the game, his 65-yard strike to Randy Moss with 11:06 left that gave the Patriots the lead for good. It also gave Brady the NFL record for touchdown passes in a season, with 50, and Moss the record for scoring receptions, 23.

The game was played at a fever pitch -- neither team could score without the other immediately answering. Matters grew so heated that as the seconds ticked down near halftime, Patriots tackle Vince Wilfork jawed and jabbed his hand into the facemask of Brandon Jacobs, touching off a near fistfight.

There was an unmistakable sense that it was a large occasion. Cars wove along the freeways toward Giants Stadium in a chain of glaring white headlights, and jammed into the parking lots, where New York and New England fans huddled around outdoor fire pits in team colors, their blues and their whites gleaming in the glow of charcoal and bonfires. "Just another regular-season game, right?" laughed a gatekeeper.

The question of whether the teams would play their starters or rest them almost constituted a game within a game, a kind of poker. But about an hour before kickoff when each team issued its deactivated list, it became clear the principles would take the field. When NFL commissioner Roger Goodell wandered along the sideline in an overcoat, his presence seemed to ratify the importance of the game. So did the crews from both NBC and CBS -- on hand for the first simulcast since Super Bowl I. "It's like the state of the union, you can flip to every channel and see it," Belichick had remarked with a rare smile earlier in the week.

It was hard to overstate just how difficult it was for the Patriots to go unbeaten -- this was their fourth comeback in the final period. Teams aren't supposed to go undefeated anymore. Everything in the structure of the modern NFL conspires against it. The salary cap and free agency are supposed to tear rosters apart and annually redistribute talent. The draft is weighted against it, and the schedule is weighted against it, in order to create parity and suck everyone back to the middle of the pack. Doormats have hope of a one-year turnaround, and dynasties are sure to crumble -- and they mostly do. What teams besides the Patriots have had sustained success in the last 10 years?

The notion that a piece of videotape explains the excellence of the Patriots is unadulterated trough-water hogwash, and now everyone knows it. The early season controversy when the Pats were caught and fined for videotaping the signals of the New York Jets now surely should be filed under the category of Big Events in Small Minds. It takes more than videotape to play the game as well as the Patriots are playing it.

Too many things have to be done right, and well, too many good habits must be cultivated, and bad habits erased. Their record is a matter of organization-wide discipline. Videotape doesn't explain why the Patriots make fewer stupid mistakes than their opponents. It doesn't explain why they almost never get penalized, why they don't jump off-sides or indulge in stupid personal fouls. It doesn't explain why they don't cough up the ball on key possessions, or miss critical field goals wide to the left or right. It doesn't explain Brady's accuracy under pressure. It certainly doesn't explain the selfless team-first ethic in their locker room, a tone set by Brady, who has repeatedly sacrificed his own salary and made himself the most underpaid great quarterback in the league, in order to build a better team. That they played their starters in this game, and played to win, was merely the ultimate expression of their consummate professionalism.

"Everyone's going to enjoy this one," Brady said. "It happens once every 35 years."