There he was, the all-American lad Tom Brady, lifting the Vince Lombardi trophy high after his fourth (record-equalling) victory on a night when he broke Joe Montana's record for Super Bowl touchdowns as his Patriots defeated the Seattle Seahawks 28-24.
After enjoying the adulation of the heaving throng he leaned down through the blue and white ticker tape to kiss his supermodel girlfriend Gisele Bundchen. You couldn't help but be reminded of the old George Best saying: "Where did it all go wrong?"
Well, it didn't go wrong for Brady, but it sure did for his opposing quarterback, Russell Wilson. Wilson, the rising wunderkind who led the Seahawks to victory in last year's Super Bowl, made an unforgivable error.
To understand the magnitude of his mistake, you have to rewind through the game where the lead was traded all the way to the fourth quarter in one of the most competitive Super Bowls in recent memory.
When Katy Perry, riding high on a shiny mechanical tiger, took to the pitch at halftime to sing Roar, that song that tries a little too hard to be an anthem, the score was 14-14. (Thank you Super Sport for not broadcasting the halftime show. I watched it on the internet. Have you checked your business model?)
Blows were traded and it all came down to the wire in the fourth quarter.
With two minutes on the clock, Brady put the Patriots in front with a touchdown pass to Julian Edelman. It was a moment of supreme arrogance from the best quarterback ever to stand on Astroturf (poetic licence).
Incredibly, this game was played on real grass in Arizona. On a previous visit to the red zone, Brady had called the same play but passed it wide. This time he put it on Edelman's hands. There. Like in practice.
But there was one more twist. Wilson, master of the last-quarter comeback, led a remarkable drive up the field with a long pass to wide receiver Jermaine Kearse, who, after bobbling the ball five times, finally caught it lying flat on his back inside the 10-yard line.
Wilson handed the ball off to Marshawn Lynch, the NFL's top rusher, a tank of a man who cuts through defences like a greased leopard in a reed bed. After a rampaging run with his dreadlocks flying, he was brought down by enough Patriots to start a boy band one yard from the line.
The Seahawks lined up and the Patriots, the crowd, the tens of millions of Americans watching and St Christopher himself would have put $100 down that Wilson was going to hand the ball to Lynch.
With two downs to go, 20 seconds on the clock and two time-outs, the Patriots were dead and buried. If they mounted a supreme effort, they might stop Lynch once. But twice? The odds were longer than a line-backer's mullet.
Incredibly, amazingly, bizarrely, Wilson ignored Lynch and threw a slant to Ricardo Lockette. It was read by rookie defender Malcolm Butler who intercepted it and went to the ground. Boom. The Patriots had the ball and it was game over.
The call had come from Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, who made his name in college football. It was a college football call in an NFL game where the margins for error are barely existent because they are measured in tens of millions of dollars. Carroll has been explaining it to America ever since.
Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package. 
