How far they've come. The New England Patriots are back in the Super Bowl, ready to spend today answering the most inane questions the worldwide media can offer.
They've made it to Arizona without a loss and are nearly a two-touchdown favorite to beat the New York Giants.
That's a long way from where they were in Super Bowl XXXVI, when no one gave them a shot to beat the high-flying St. Louis Rams.
Of course, that's exactly what the Patriots did when Adam Vinatieri's 48-yard field goal split the uprights in the Superdome as time expired, setting off a celebration throughout New England as the Pats became the region's first major pro team to win a championship since the 1986 Boston Celtics.
The 2001 Patriots were an easy team to like, a gritty group of underdogs who finished the season with a nine-game winning streak and had an unheralded, blue-collar quarterback named Tom Brady.
They traveled to Pittsburgh to knock off the favored Steelers in the AFC championship game and didn't stop until Troy Brown and Bob Kraft danced away the afternoon at Boston's city hall plaza.
Now, the Patriots are the favorites. And the 2007 Giants look a lot like the Patriots of six years ago.
The Giants made the playoffs last season but finished 8-9 and lost their first two games this season. But they're coming off three playoff wins on the road in January and an NFL-record 10 consecutive road victories dating back to September.
They forged a comeback win in the divisional playoffs at Dallas and an overtime victory in the NFC championship game at Green Bay. They won in brutal weather conditions and are led by a quarterback who seems to be coming of age.
Now the Giants will try to knock off a team led by a quarterback who has won the Super Bowl MVP award twice while operating an offense that led the league by scoring more than 500 points. Only 11 teams in NFL history have reached that remarkable plateau.
The Giants will try to do exactly what the 2001 Patriots were able to accomplish. They will try to carry the momentum of an improbable conference championship to one more game.
That Patriots team held Kurt Warner, a former Super Bowl MVP, in check and defeated a team that had scored more than 500 points during the regular season.
During the 2001 regular season, New England lost to St. Louis, 24-17. This season, the Pats beat the Giants, 38-35. It marks the 12th time in NFL history Super Bowl foes met during the regular season.
In the previous 11 meetings, the team that lost the regular- season matchup has a 6-5 edge in the Super Bowl.
A long time ago, football fans in these parts used to cheer for the Giants. My father generally didn't cheer for teams from New York when I was growing up, but the Giants were the exception. A man who followed football long before the Pats came to life in 1960, he always had a soft spot for the team in blue. There is an entire generation of New Englanders who still remember those days.
A new generation is growing up in the midst of a football dynasty. If that dynasty is to continue Sunday, the Pats better hope they're not looking across the field at a mirror image of the team that started this incredible run of success six years ago.
Tom Caron is the studio host for Red Sox broadcasts on the New England Sports Network. His column appears in the Press Herald on Tuesdays.For more on NESN programming, go to the NESN Web site .
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