File Under: Eli Manning, Super Bowl XLII, longest drive, Giants Patriots
02/03 — QB Eli Manning and the Giants took the opening kickoff and drove into the Super Bowl record book.
It's not a record that's easily found, but in holding onto the ball for the game's first 9:59, the Giants set the NFL mark for the longest drive by clock time in Super Bowl history. Manning helped set it by converting four third-down situations, three on completions.
The team they took the record from won't mind too much — the 1990 Giants held the ball for 9:29 on their third-quarter drive against the Buffalo Bills in SBXXV. One of the reasons for that long drive was RB Ottis Anderson, the XXV MVP who was signing autographs at the Big Blue station at the Taste of the NFL charity event Saturday night. The third-best drive time now belongs to the Cincinnati Bengals and Boomer Esiason, who had a 9:15 field goal drive in SBXXIII against San Francisco.
The Giants also set a Super Bowl record for most plays on a game-opening drive with 16, including Lawrence Tynes' short field goal that gave the "visiting team" the lead.
It was also the first first-quarter lead held by opponents against the Patriots in a Super Bowl since SBXXXVI, when the Rams took the early 3-0 lead with 3:10 left in the first quarter of that game.
But there's lots of time left in this one, and as the Pats' Super Bowls move along, they wind up holding the lead longer and letting their opponents hold it shorter. We'll get into that later if it's appropriate.
Here are the longest drives by time in Super Bowl history:
| Season (SB) | Team | Opponent | Time | Outcome |
| 2007 (XLII) | N.Y. Giants | New England | 9:59 | FG |
| 1990 (XXV) | N.Y. Giants | Buffalo | 9:29 | TD |
| 1988 (XXIII) | Cincinnati | San Francisco | 9:15 | FG |
| 1987 (XXII) | Washington | Denver | 9:11 | EOG |
| 1995 (XXX) | Dallas | Pittsburgh | 8:44 | FG |
| 1967 (II) | Green Bay | Oakland | 8:40 | FG |
Randy Lange Said:
Mon, February 4, 2008 - 2:01pm EDT"And you call me a wordsmith."
oldtimegreen Said:
Mon, February 4, 2008 - 1:41pm EDT"Randy’s Radar repeating remarkably radiant reportage. Required reading! One of our organization’s best back-office moves was the less than a year ago quiet hiring bang of wordsmith Randy Lange. True, our partners chewed-up a record 599-seconds of first-quarter game clock on a sweet-sixteen play drive that likely set stage, tempo and game attitude. Though we set in SB III the classic clock-eater of not attempting a pass the entire second half. "