E-Mail This Article to a Friend There’s no denying that the Patriots wouldn’t be denied BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

For the longest time on Sunday, it seemed like my Super Bowl prediction (13-0 Patriots) was going to be right on the money. You had the overwhelmed Carolina Panthers going three-and-out on their first three possessions, and not even getting a first down until Patriots cornerback Ty Law was flagged for holding on a third-and-five on the Panthers’ fourth drive. Stephen Davis, who had rushed for over 1400 yards during Carolina’s regular season, had just 16 yards on seven carries, and quarterback Jake Delhomme was one-for-seven for just a single yard passing — and this was midway through the second quarter. Meanwhile, the Patriots had parlayed Troy Brown’s 28-yard punt return into a 34-yard opening drive that led to an Adam Vinatieri field goal. Oops, he missed it! No matter, New England had established that it could move the ball against the vaunted Carolina defense, and the Panthers were confused on offense and seemingly overmatched on defense.

So a 13-0 final wasn’t that far-fetched at this point, because it seemed likely that the patterns would continue: New England would persist in staging drives and eventually put up points, while Carolina would flail away, prone to turnovers and helpless to move the ball because its running game had been neutralized and its passing game mediocre to begin with. Had that trend continued, the first shutout in Super Bowl history could have been attained, although the game itself would have been a colossal bore.

Instead, something magical happened, and while the Cats’ running game never did get untracked (Davis and DeShaun Foster combined for 92 yards, but 53 of those yards were attained in two carries), Delhomme showed Brady-esque skills, and when it appeared that all hope for a competitive game was lost, the Panthers unleashed a ferocious passing game that nearly won the damn Super Bowl for them. Instead, with the game tied 29-29 with 50 seconds to play, the Patriots again staged a game-winning drive, culminating in Vinatieri’s clutch 41-yarder with four seconds left to lift the Patriots to the franchise’s second Super Bowl title.

What a game this was. Oftentimes you see a game play out as a production of two differing halves, and in fact one half of Sunday’s game was scoreless, while the other half was punctuated by points. It happens. Yet it was the first and third quarters that had the goose eggs on the board, while the even-numbered quarters displayed offensive fireworks (24 points scored in the second, 37 in the breathtaking fourth), and the game took on the persona of a boxing match, with seeming knockout blows delivered but the victim rising from the canvas each time to make a resounding comeback of his own.

For heartbroken Carolina fans, there are a lot of what-ifs. What if the Panther receivers had not dropped so many balls? What if the fourth-down spotting of the football during a critical second-quarter possession proved to be short, and the Patriots turned the ball over on downs rather than extend the drive? What if the Panthers didn’t go 0-for-2 in two-point conversions, and instead just kicked those extra points? What if the team wasn’t penalized a Super Bowl record of 12 times? And, of course, there’s the big one: what if place-kicker John Kasay didn’t kick the ball out of bounds on his kickoff with 50 seconds remaining? If the Patriots had to start at their 20 or 25 rather than the stipulated 40-yard-line, would Tom Brady have had the time to get his team into field-goal range for the game-winning kick? Or does Super Bowl history get its first sudden-death overtime?

Patriots fans are not only breathing a sigh of relief as they try to dismiss the hangover-induced cobwebs on Monday morning, but they are still convinced that, if not for uncharacteristic mistakes committed by their beloved Pats, this game never would have been in doubt. They point to the following: a ridiculous third-quarter interception thrown by Brady from his nine into the end zone when even a field goal would have put the team up by eight; the subsequent 85-yard TD bomb thrown by Delhomme to Mushin Muhammad, surrendered by a team that had not given up a play of over 50 yards all season long; the two Vinatieri missed field goals in the first half; Adam also messing up on a routine squib kick with 18 seconds remaining before halftime, giving the Panthers top-notch field position and a gift-wrapped field goal just prior to the gun sounding; the fourth-quarter exit of safety Rodney Harrison, paving the way for Delhomme and Ricky Proehl to torch Harrison’s replacement, Asante Samuel, on the game-tying fourth-quarter drive; a Panther fumble ruled by the officials as an incomplete pass early in the third quarter, denying the Pats a prime opportunity to extend their 14-10 lead; an atypical eight team penalties.

Both teams in fact displayed characteristics that were decidedly out of character: the Panthers posted 29 points against one of the NFL’s top defenses even though the team had scored that many points just once during the entire season; and the Patriots surrendered three drives of 80-plus yards after forcing Carolina into punts on its first five possessions. Yet ultimately New England showed its fans more of what they’d come to expect, not only during this ridiculous 15-game winning streak, but also in terms of the Brady era. If the team gave up 10 points, it scored 13; if it allowed 20, it put up 23; and similar to the Tennessee contest earlier in the season (won by New England, 38-30, in Week Five to start the unbeaten skein), if the team gave up a whole lot of points — say, 29 — then the offense would find a way to pick up the defense and tally up 32.

Patriots fans entered the match-up in the unusual position of seeing their team favored in the ultimate game, and while those backers were confident without being arrogant or cocky, most could not have imagined that the Caroliners would put up as much of a fight as they did. I myself was utterly convinced that there was no way that the Panthers could win, and I told anyone and everyone that if New England didn’t turn the ball over (and it did only the one time on Sunday), then a Patriot victory was a lock. A New England blowout was also a possibility, I figured, since I believed the Panthers were probably only the fourth-best team in the NFC, and the NFC was relatively weak to begin with. How could a team that got blown out by the Titans by 20 points at home even begin to contend with a team like the Patriots — a team that was not only ensconced in that streak, but also battle-tested and defensively overwhelming throughout the season? I correctly surmised that the Pats would shut down the Cats’ running game, and once that happened, I believed that Carolina would be dead meat if it had to rely on its questionable passing game, engineered by first-year starter Delhomme. Most people around these parts expected that Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, along with defensive coordinator Romeo Crennel, would confound and batter into submission the 29-year-old Delhomme. Instead, the Cajun stud eventually figured it out and pierced the Patriots D for 323 yards on 16-for-33 passing after his ignominious start. He actually had the Panthers on the precipice of Super Bowl glory until Brady again worked his last-minute wizardry on the NFL’s biggest stage. The Panthers not only earned tremendous respect from their opponents and viewers throughout the world, but they clearly showed that Belichick’s team is not invincible despite the team’s season-long domination of the AFC and all other comers. For Patriots fans, it was downright mind-numbing to see their team actually fall behind in the fourth quarter and be in danger of losing — an occurrence that had not happened in 478 minutes — a span of nearly eight full games.

Of course, it all turned out okay, and that’s primarily because it’s always more than Belichick, or Brady, or Vinatieri; it’s what has made the Patriots team so successful, appealing, and endearing. Just look at the game’s potential MVP candidates as the game unfolded on Sunday: at one time or another, you could make a case for WRs Troy Brown (eight catches, 76 yards) or Deion Branch (10 catches, 143 yards), RB Antowain Smith (26 carries, 83 yards), linebacker Mike Vrabel (six tackles, two sacks, a forced fumble, and even a stunning TD catch on a tackle-eligible play), and, of course, Brady, the eventual winner of the award, who carved up the Panthers for 354 yards on 32-for-48 efficiency along with three TD passes (and even 12 yards rushing). The fact that there were so many heroes in the Patriots’ victory is testament to the fact that they are not superstar-dominated, despite the fact that they often get superstar-type performances out of its individuals and collective units. Brady was allowed to be the ultimate hero because his offensive line again prevented him from getting sacked — the third straight playoff game in which he has emerged unscathed. The defense, while giving up a ton of passing yards, still played well enough to win, and one can’t overlook the importance of the various times that Carolina’s momentum-fueled drives were ground to a crushing halt, in particular the two-point conversion denials.

And so it happened that Carolina and its home state was again deprived of the region’s first professional championship, and long-starved New England fans — who, prior to the Pats’ 2002 crown, hadn’t seen a pro title of any kind since 1986 — are sated again. With two first-round picks in the upcoming draft, along with two seconds and two fourths, the Patriots are in the unlikely position of being able to significantly improve next season, especially when one factors in the return of linebacker Rosevelt Colvin, who missed practically the entire season, due to injury.

Indeed, fans around here are beaming and fulfilled, knowing that the asterisk attached to Super Bowl XXXVI can forever be erased, and that perhaps even better days (if that’s possible) lie ahead.

Enjoy it while you can, New England fans, because the local sports landscape’s ultimate flip-side reports to the batting cages in 11 days.

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com, and Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com