EVEN THOUGH HE is wearing a Superbowl ring this morning, you’ve got to feel sorry for Ahmad Bradshaw.
Imagine; your whole life you’ve dreamt of playing football. The crescendo of that dream is scoring a touchdown to become ‘world champions’ – the crowd goes wild.
It’s a funny old game, though. When that moment finally arrived for the running back with a only a minute on the clock, he couldn’t enjoy it in the slightest. The New England Patriots had allowed him through on purpose.
It is the most counter-intuitive thing in the sport, to let the opponent score. But the Patriots needed the ball back and quick. The Giants wanted to ground the ball at the one-yard line to squeeze a little extra time off the clock and hope there would be no hitches on a late straightforward field goal.
The defence parted and Bradshaw later told Sports Illustrated; “I thought I heard Eli (Manning) yelling at me to fall down … I tried.”
Man he tried, but the internal struggle was won by the overwhelming urge to score rather than cyncially run the clock down.
A glance from his knee joint onto the turf would have made him look ice-cool under pressure.
But he just couldn’t force it down and he instead fell across the line in what must go down as the most awkward game-winning touchdown in the Superbowl’s 46 year history.
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