Pats Get Leg Up, Win Super Bowl

Houston, we have a champion. And once again, the New England Patriots have Adam Vinatieri's foot to thank for a Super Bowl victory.

Vinatieri gave New England its second NFL championship in three seasons with a 41-yard field goal with 4 seconds left for a thrilling 32-29 victory over the Carolina Panthers on Sunday night.

Vinatieri earlier missed a field goal and had another one blocked. But as he did in 2002 when he kicked the winning field goal to beat St. Louis on the final play of the Super Bowl, he proved he is perhaps the NFL's best clutch kicker.

For a contest that was scoreless for a record 26 minutes and 55 seconds, this game was one of the all-time offensive shows between two of the NFL's best defenses.

There were 37 points scored in the fourth quarter alone and Tom Brady, who led New England on its winning drive, was 32-of-48 for 354 yards and three touchdowns.

Brady was voted the game's MVP for the second time in three seasons, although he did throw an interception that prevented New England from winning more easily.

"There have been some heart attacks, but they've come out on top," said coach Bill Belichick, whose team won its 15th straight game.

Carolina had tied the game at 29 with its third fourth-quarter TD on a 12-yard pass from Jake Delhomme to Ricky Proehl. Then John Kasay kicked the ball out of bounds to give New England field position at its own 40.

Brady then moved the Patriots 37 yards in six plays, hitting Deion Branch to set up Vinatieri's winning kick.

"I looked up and it was going right down the middle," Vinatieri said.

"I've got my fingers crossed. My toes crossed. I'm praying for that ball to go through because at that point you're spent and I didn't want to go to overtime," Brady told CBS News Early Show co-anchor Hannah Storm, recalling the moments before the kick. "Just let him drill it. Just let him make it and we'll kind of ride off into the sunset."

Vinatieri's heroics prevented the Super Bowl from going into overtime for the first time ever.

As always, football wasn't the only attraction.

There was a gleaming new $450 million stadium to show off, a slew of pricey new ads, with stars from Aerosmith, Kid Rock and Beyonce to Justin Timberlake, Janet Jackson and P. Diddy on hand for entertainment.

The biggest cliffhanger of the week wasn't who would win, but whether Janet's brother, Michael, would show up. He didn't, but Timberlake did, as the surprise guest at the halftime show.

That turned out a little different than the show's producers had expected: Timberlake reached for part of Jackson's top at the end of the halftime show and exposed her breast.

Jackson quickly covered up, and the network cut away just as fast, without making any comment on the air about the incident.

Timberlake calls it a "wardrobe malfunction" which was not intentional, and later issued a statement apologizing to anyone who was offended.

CBS, which broadcast Super Bowl XXXVIII, issued a statement saying there was no hint in rehearsals all week that any such thing would happen, the incident did not conform to CBS broadcast standards, and the network apologizes to anyone who was offended.

Halftime also served up another surprise: A streaker trotted out to the middle of the field before the third-quarter kickoff. While the CBS cameras focused elsewhere, police gave chase. New England linebacker Matt Chatham leveled the man, who was hogtied and carried off the field.

It was all part of the big show, capping a week every bit as suited for "Entertainment Tonight" as "Inside the NFL."

Hosting its first Super Bowl in 30 years, Houston transformed its downtown into a meandering, nonstop party. Tim McGraw was in concert on one side. Paris Hilton went to parties on the other.

"You have to know what sells the game," Panthers defensive lineman Brentson Buckner said. "You just have to keep it in perspective."

Finding a bottle of Cristal, the stars' champagne of choice, was a Texas-sized adventure. The $150-a-bottle beverage was sold out almost everywhere in town. The local newspaper wrote a story with the headline: "Parties may be BYOC" - Bring Your Own Cristal.

Outside the Super Bowl city, Americans made big plans to soak in all the action.

One survey showed Americans nearly double their consumption of cocktail franks during Super Bowl week, and spend $5 million more than normal on tortilla chips.

Most of that is consumed in front of the TV, where an estimated 100 million viewers would get the best view of the commercials that have become the most-anticipated moments of the Super Bowl. CBS sold 30-second spots for an average of $2.3 million, with early favorites including computer-generated ads for Cadillac, FedEx and Pepsi's Sierra Mist.

"We've managed to turn this into a truly viable American holiday" said Bob Thompson, a professor of culture and TV at Syracuse. "But the centerpiece isn't the Christmas tree or the turkey, it's the TV set, and cuisine you can pick up at the convenience store."

America's threshold for odd distractions has certainly increased over the past few years, a fact that was hard to miss as not one, not two, but three pharmaceutical companies aired ads touting drugs for erectile dysfunction.

A urologist from New York University made himself available to the media for interviews about the disease, hoping to calm frayed nerves of men who will be bombarded by the ads.

Besides the living room, a casino in Las Vegas might have been one of the best places to watch a game. But the NFL threatened legal action against the ones that planned Super Bowl parties, forcing them to ditch their huge-screen TVs and hand out refunds.

"As far as I'm concerned, the NFL is full of soup," Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said.

Nevertheless, an estimated $75 million was to be wagered legally in Nevada, to say nothing of the millions more in office pools around the country.

Unfortunately, the celebration of the Patriots' win turned rowdy, and deadly. One person died in Boston when a driver backed an SUV into a crowd of revelers.

Police were out in force in Boston's Kenmore Square, where hundreds of fans danced in the streets and lit small fires. A local television station reports that one of its vans was vandalized, and fans flipped at least six cars. Other people set off fireworks and climbed statues and street lights.

In Charlotte, police report just a few fights but no serious problems caused by disappointed Panthers fans.