Patriots beat Seahawks to win the Super Bowl

The New England Patriots were crowned Super Bowl champions on Sunday after defeating the Seattle Seahawks 28-24 to capture their first National Football League title in 10 years.

It was a game of clutch football except for Katy Perry singing with dancing sharks at the half-time to signal it was a Super Bowl. The play came spiced with a sensational fourth-quarter rally and a goal-line, game-saving interception.

The victory put New England up there with five other teams with at least four Super Bowl wins while quaterback Tom Brady joined Hall of Famers Terry Bradshaw and childhood idol Joe Montana as the only quarterbacks with four championship rings.

Brady fired four touchdowns, including two in a frantic fourth quarter, to give him a record 13 Super Bowl touchdown passes. Brady surpassed Montana's mark of 11 Super Bowl touchdown passes with a 5-yarder to Danny Amendola.

The Most Valuable Player? Brady. "I've been at it for 15 years and we've had a couple of tough losses in this game," Brady said. "This one came down to the end, and this time, we made the plays."

The buildup to the Super Bowl had been dominated by a controversy over deflated footballs used by the Patriots in a blowout win over the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC title game that earned them a trip to Arizona and a whiff of scandal hung over University of Phoenix Stadium as the NFL investigation into the matter continued.

The game represented a last chance for the NFL to put a scandal scarred season behind it and the Patriots and Seahawks did their part, providing an afternoon of football drama.

It was a game of spurts by both teams, at times looking like a Patriots blowout, then appearing to be a repeat coronation for Seattle, which had a vast majority of the fans among the 70,288.

Jeremy Lane made the first big play to negate a nearly eight-minute drive by the Patriots with a leaping interception at the goal line late in the first quarter.  Lane, a third-year backup Legion of Boom member, made his first pro interception, but left with a wrist injury after being tackled by Julian Edelman.

In another memorable moment, rookie Malcolm Butler stepped in front of the Seahawks’ Ricardo Lockette and picked off Russell Wilson's off-target pass to complete one of the wildest-ever Super Bowl finishes.

"I just had a vision that I was going to make a big play and it came true," said Butler, an undrafted rookie from West Alabama. "I just knew they were stacked … it all comes down to preparation. I just made a guess and made a play.”

Wire services