GLENDALE, Ariz. (AP) — When it comes to perfect endings, this Super Bowl delivered.

Not in the undefeated way — the New England Patriots fell short of that.

But for drama, excitement, a game living up to the hype — well, Eli Manning and the New York Giants really did come through.

A masterful magician when the stakes were highest, Manning engineered one of the best drives in Super Bowl history Sunday to help the Giants squash New England's run at history-making perfection with a 17-14 victory.

"An unbelievable game and an unbelievable feeling," Manning said.

It was a game, and a finish, that showed precisely why football is America's favorite sport and the Super Bowl its favorite spectacle.

Manning led the Giants 83 yards in just more than two minutes. He capped it with a 13-yard touchdown pass to Plaxico Burress with 35 seconds left, to win what easily could go down as the best Super Bowl ever.

So often, these Super Bowls don't come close to living up to the buildup. This game had to be something special considering all the great story lines leading up to it: the perfect team; the upstart underdogs; the cover boy quarterback in Tom Brady; the kid brother in Manning.

It was.

The star was Manning, the scruffy younger brother of Peyton, who won his own Super Bowl last year, and sat in the corner of a skybox for this one, squirming and agonizing over every play.

Now both Mannings have a championship and a Super Bowl MVP to their names and Brady — well, he's still got the looks, the supermodel girlfriend, Gisele Bundchen, and three Super Bowl titles of his own.

With the loss, New England finished 18-1, and the 1972 Miami Dolphins remain the only team to go undefeated from the start of the season through the Super Bowl.

Their coach, Don Shula, was on hand, ready to congratulate the Patriots. Instead, he gets another chance to sip champagne, continuing a tradition the Dolphins have enjoyed every year when the last undefeated team finally gets its first loss.

"What a great football game this was," Shula said. "What I learned today was how tough it is to go undefeated."

His Dolphins remain alone thanks to Manning, whose 13-yard game-winner came four plays after he escaped a cadre of Patriots engulfing him, threw the ball up for grabs — how, exactly, did he do that? — and watched receiver David Tyree jump and somehow pin it between his hands and his helmet for the 32-yard reception.

That kept the drive going, and it will be Manning's mastery that everyone remembers — not Brady's coolly efficient 80-yard touchdown drive moments earlier.

"They played well," Patriots coach Bill Belichick said. "They made some plays. We made some plays. They just made a few more. We played as hard as we could. We just couldn't make enough plays."

This game was a back-and-forth stomach-turner that had a great chance of breaking the record for Super Bowl viewership (94.08 million) and certainly gave advertisers their money's worth on the $2.7 million they spent for each 30-second spot.

It might even force Monday's water-cooler conversation to be about football, not commercials or halftime shows.

For the record, Tom Petty did a four-song halftime set, closing, appropriately, with "Runnin' Down A Dream."

Some highlights on the commercial side included Shaquille O'Neal as a winning jockey in a big horse race, Richard Simmons barely avoiding being squished on the highway and Will Ferrell playing a — well — not-so-fit pro basketball player who also likes beer.

Funny as those were, the best show was on the field.

It was a tight, taut defensive battle for three-plus quarters — yet anything but boring.

Then it was taken over by two quarterbacks — one already a star, the other yearning to escape the shadow his father, Archie, and big brother, Peyton have cast over the family, and the sport, for many years now.

Earlier in the week, Eli said it was flattering being compared to Peyton because "he's at the top of his game, and I'm still trying to get my game up to his level."

"I never thought about them even playing college ball, much less pro football, much less winning Super Bowls or MVPs," Archie Manning said. "It wasn't in the plan. We tried to raise kids. We raised kids just like other parents raised their kids."

All year, the Patriots were unbeatable, even when these same Giants gave them their toughest test of all in the last game of the regular season, a 38-35 final that gave New York the confidence it needed.

Looking for something to pick on, New England's critics went to "Spygate," the Week 1 plot devised by coach Bill Belichick to videotape Jets defensive coaches as they signaled to players on the field. The NFL fined the coach $500,000 and the team $250,000 and a first-round draft pick, and the pundits said the Patriots might be forever remembered as cheaters.

The subject came up frequently this week, including Sunday, when Sen. Arlen Specter reiterated he's considering Senate hearings to get to the bottom of the matter.

Will he care now that it's the Giants, not the Patriots, holding the Vince Lombardi Trophy?

"It's the greatest feeling in professional sports," Burress said.

As for the ending? Well, Manning put it best: "You can't write a better script."