with the team for 60 years. The Giants became only the fourth team to win the Super Bowl without playing a single home game in the preceding playoffs. They joined the 1966 Green Bay Packers (who won Super Bowl I against the Kansas City Chiefs), the 1969 Kansas City Chiefs (who won Super Bowl IV against the Minnesota Vikings) and the 2005 Pittsburgh Steelers (who won Super Bowl XL against the Seattle Seahawks) in accomplishing this feat. However, Green Bay had to win two games (including the Super Bowl), Kansas City three, and Pittsburgh and the Giants four, in order to accomplish this. Since then, the 2010 Green Bay Packers also won three road playoff games en route to their Super Bowl XLV victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Giants were the only NFC team to make multiple Super Bowl appearances in the 2000s decade, at the ends of the 2000 and 2007 seasons. Starting with the Rams' appearance in 2001, ten different NFC teams represented the conference from 2001 to 2010: Rams, Buccaneers, Panthers, Eagles, Seahawks, Bears, Giants, Cardinals, Saints, and Packers. New England Patriots When the New England Patriots arrived at Super Bowl XLII, they were already billed as the greatest team in NFL history. The Patriots were not only competing for a fourth Super Bowl title since the 2001 season; they were aiming to become the first team in NFL history to achieve a 19–0 record. Their perfect 16–0 record in the regular season was the first since the league moved to a 16-game regular season in 1978. It was also only the fourth undefeated and untied regular season in NFL history. New England set NFL records with 589 points scored (an average of 36.8 points per game) (since broken by the 2013 Broncos), 75 total touchdowns, and a net differential of +315 points (they gave up 274 points, fourth best in the league). Some experts have suggested that the Patriots' 16–0 record is the culmination of a larger trend towards better records for top NFL teams since the league realignment in 2002. The team was led by then eighth-year quarterback Tom Brady who proceeded to have the best season of his entire career and won his first NFL MVP and NFL Offensive MVP awards, throwing for a then-career-high 4,806 yards and a then NFL record 50 touchdowns (22 more than his previous best season; since broken