02/03 — It's all about the lead. New England came out of the first quarter of Super Bowl XLII trailing, 3-0, thus extending its trend of never having led in any of the four Super Bowls of the Tom Brady/Bill Belichick era.

But on the first play of the second quarter, after a faceguarding interference call against Giants LB Antonio Pierce on TE Ben Watson in the end zone at the end of the opening frame, Patriots RB Laurence Maroney scored from a yard out and the Pats had a 7-3 lead.

Then the Patriots defense ended QB Eli Manning's three-game long streak of not turning the ball over, although Manning held help when his hard throw caught Steve Smith by surprise and Smith muffed the pass right into the arms of CB Ellis Hobbs at the NE-10, ending the Giants' closest approach to the Patriots end zone.

The teams traded punts until the final minutes, when the Patriots got out of the shadow of their end zone with a Tom Brady third-down conversion pass to — who else? — Kevin Faulk and suddenly threatened to strike for a late field goal.

That is until Giants DT Justin Tuck did it again. Tuck, who has been a matchup nightmare for the Patriots' interior line in the first half, looped around from behind and still caught the rolling-out Brady for a strip sack that Osi Umenyiora recovered at midfield.

The Giants tried to strike in the final 10 seconds but Eli Manning's Hail Mary just eluded two sets of Big Blue hands and the Patriots went into their University of Phoenix locker room with a 7-3 lead.

But the Giants may well have gone into their dressing rooms humming one of the legendary lyrics of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, who are now coming out of the wings to put on their halftime mini-concert. They're "runnin' down a dream, that never would come to me, working on a mystery, goin' wherever it leads, runnin' down a dream."