By JIM DONALDSON, The Providence Journal

INDIANAPOLIS - It was the last thing the Patriots wanted to see.

Because they'd seen Eli Manning, with the ball in his hands and the game on the line, beat them too many times before.

He'd done it in Super Bowl XLII, taking the Giants 83 yards in the final 2:39 to the winning touchdown, crushing the Patriots' hopes for an undefeated season.

INDIANAPOLIS - It's Super Bowl week, where a throwaway line becomes a headline faster than New England Patriots wide receiver Wes Welker gets downfield.

Nothing is small at the Super Bowl. Everything is BIG.

Little things, trivial things, can quickly become, well, supersized.

Yes, it's Super Bowl week, when the slightest thing can be transformed into a huge slight.

They toy with opponents, like a cat with a cornered mouse.

They tease their overmatched foes, letting them think an upset may be in the making.

Then they squash those foolish hopes -- efficiently, effectively, seemingly effortlessly, certainly cruelly.

Down by nine in the second quarter at Denver?

No big deal.

Donald Thomas has all his ducks in a row.

Literally.

Scores of rubber ducks of every shape, size, and variety are neatly aligned on the shelves of his locker.

"Somebody -- I have an idea who, but I'm not sure -- has been putting a duck in my locker almost every day since I've been here," he said.

And why is that?

In the beginning, there was the Dolphins game.

That was the genesis of Denver's miraculous resurrection.

Denver's season was going to hell in a hand basket, with four losses in the first five games, when the Broncos decided to replace veteran quarterback Kyle Orton with the charismatic Tim Tebow, who's a better Christian than he is a passer.

All that New England football fans will be talking about today is the sideline spat between Tom Brady and Bill O'Brien, the Patriots' quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator.

But that was no big deal.

What Pats fans -- and coach Bill Belichick -- really ought to be concerned about is the team's porous defense.

You've heard of Freudian slips.

They're fairly common, often revealing, sometimes amusing.

Well, this was a Belichickian slip.

Which happens about as often as . . . as . . . well, about as often as coach Bill Belichick's Patriots fail to make the playoffs.

Which won't be this year.

It was deja vu all over again.

Except the New York Giants didn't need David Tyree to catch any balls on the top of his helmet this time.

That's because, instead of Rodney Harrison in coverage for New England, it was Sergio Brown.

And then it was Tracy White.

Bill Belichick is brilliant, as he proved again on Sunday.

The Patriots coach isn't just one or two moves ahead of the opposition, he's months ahead.

When QB Tom Brady eventually decides to call it quits, that's when Patriots coach Bill Belichick should retire, too.

If, that is, he's as smart as I think he is.

Which, truth be told, is not as smart as most people -- at least in New England -- seem to think.

Is it time to finally debunk the myth of Belichick as defensive genius?