NFL: Extremes of fortune for trio from 2008

Super Bowl XLVI, to be played today in the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, is a repeat of the 2008 showpiece, when the New York Giants shocked American football by denying the New England Patriots a perfect season.

Matters were decided late on when Plaxico Burress, the Giants' wide receiver, froze New England cornerback Ellis Hobbs with a clever feint and caught a pass from quarterback Eli Manning unchallenged in the end zone. But the trio's later careers show the extremes of fortune in the United States' toughest sport.

Manning is still Giants quarterback, hoping to join an elite brotherhood who own two Super Bowl rings. He went into the 2008 game as the younger brother of Peyton, the Indianapolis Colts' outstanding quarterback, but has developed a reputation of his own after a series of come-from-behind game-winning touchdown passes.

If he cements his legacy with another game-winning pass, it will not be to Burress, who left the Giants for New York rivals the Jets last year after 20 months in jail for taking an unlicensed gun into a nightclub eight months after the Super Bowl win. The gun slipped from his waistband and shot him in the thigh.

Burress had hoped to re-sign with the Giants but was dismayed to find that Manning, who had not contacted him in jail, preferred to remain loyal to young players such as Victor Cruz, who had replaced him.

"Nothing, not a letter, in two years," Burress told Men's Journal last September. "I thought our relationship was better than that."

However, for all Burress' later travails, he has the 2008 highlight to look back on.

"I had been watching film on Ellis Hobbs, and noticing that he likes to stop his feet right around the goalline. I knew exactly how and when to run. I knew that I had a great shot to make the game-winning catch, " he recalled.

"Being able to play in the Super Bowl, to win it in the fashion that I did, it's something that you dream of as a child ... It was a defining moment of a lot of guys in our careers, and it was a beautiful moment."

Burress can still dream of repeating it with the Jets, but for Hobbs that prospect is over. He was forced to retire last season at 28 with a neck injury suffered from a hit while returning a kick-off for his next team, the Philadelphia Eagles, in November 2010. Coincidentally, the opponents were the Giants.

He has moved into film production; his first project, The Last Fall, is the story of a footballer who must face early retirement.

Hobbs is relaxed about the 2008 touchdown, saying he "played the coverage to the best of my ability. It was what it was and it happened, simple as that".

He is much more emotional about the hit that ended his career, saying: "It hurts ... It's about the fact that something was taken away from me."Independent