Talk about a dramatic turnaround!

Bill Barnwell's other takeaway from that play was the massive turnaround in fortunes it provided - here's the link to his article again, but the essential part is as follows:

An Epic Swing

In terms of one play swinging a team’s chances of winning the Super Bowl, the second-down interception was probably the most important in the history of the NFL. Burke’s Advanced Football Analytics model suggested after the game that the Patriots’ chances of winning jumped from 12 percent before the interception to 99 percent afterward, for a swing of 87 percentage points. It’s difficult for one play in any context to shift things that dramatically.

The Mike Jones tackle of Kevin Dyson at the 1-yard line in Super Bowl XXXIV came to mind, but that was a 23-16 game; even if Dyson had gotten in, Tennessee’s chances of winning would have risen only to about 50 percent, since the two teams would have gone to overtime (or Tennessee would have attempted a two-pointer, which would also have put its chances of winning near 50 percent). The most meaningful play before this one was probably Scott Norwood’s missed 47-yard field goal in a 20-19 game at the end of Super Bowl XXV, but there’s no way he had an 87 percent chance of making the game-winning field goal to begin with, so even reducing Buffalo’s chances to zero wouldn’t match Wilson’s interception.

Watching the emotions on the faces of the sideline people in particular was amazing - especially Tom Brady, for whom the game had a redemptive quality beyond that of "normal" players. It's what makes football such a joy to watch - other sports don't do that. Much more rarely do you see a turnaround like that in basketball (game 6 of the first Miami/SanAntonio finals comes to mind), baseball (Bill Buckner comes to mind), or hockey (nothing comes to mind...), let alone soccer. The ratio of points to number of scores is what causes it - a seven point/one score turnaround made this game go from 12% to 99%. Also, plays are distinctive events in football, not so much in soccer or hockey, or even in basketball on most occasions. We'll re-run certain plays in our mind (and on video) over and over again.