Eli Manning to David Tyree: Tyree Leaps

Examining Manning to Tyree, the play that changed the Super Bowl.

There's an old adage in football that when a receiver jumps to catch a ball, he needs to try to catch it at the highest point of his jump. That's exactly what Giants wide receiver David Tyree did when he saw Eli Manning's pass come his way in the middle of the field: He leapt into the air to grab the ball rather than waiting for it to come down to him.

The 6-foot-0 Tyree isn't particularly tall as NFL receivers go. In fact, he's an inch shorter than Rodney Harrison, the Patriots safety he out-jumped for the ball. But out-jump Harrison he did. Tyree's most important skill on the play was less jumping than timing -- if Tyree had mis-timed his jump by just a split-second, he wouldn't have been at his highest at the instant the ball arrived, and the ball either would have gone over his fingertips, or Harrison would have knocked it away.

In a play that required perfect timing all around, the timing of Tyree's jump was the most important moment of all.

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