The Vince Lombardi Trophy, awarded to the Super Bowl winner, is unveiled by Ben Nix of NFL Security before Friday’s media conferences with Patriots coach Bill Belichick and Giants coach Tom Coughlin in Phoenix, Ariz. The Patriots helmet beat the Giants helmet to the table.

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The Providence Journal/ / Gretchen Ertl

GLENDALE, Ariz. — Many times, the Super Bowl is overhyped and overblown, pumped up and built up to be larger than life, its importance inflated out of all proportion.

Not this time.

This year, it is impossible to overstate the importance, the significance, the magnitude of Super Bowl XLII, in which the New England Patriots can complete a perfect19-0 season by beating the New York Giants.

“It’s the biggest game of all our lives — my life, the entire team, our coaches,” said Tom Brady, the Pats’ Super Bowl-winning, supermodel-dating, record-setting, superstar quarterback. “We’re going to be remembering this game for as long as we live, win or lose.”

If the Patriots win, they will join the 1972 Miami Dolphins, who went 17-0, as the only undefeated NFL champions in the Super Bowl era, which began with the 1966 season.

The Dolphins’ perfect run was three years after New England’s 39-year-old linebacker, Junior Seau, was born. He is in his 19th season in the National Football League, and not once in that long career — and only once in his lifetime — has a team put together a perfect season.

“This game is bigger than any of us,” Seau said. “This is about history. It’s the chance of a lifetime, something to look back on and be very proud of for years to come.”

The game that will be played tonight at University of Phoenix Stadium, home of the Arizona Cardinals, is one that will be remembered forever — especially if the Patriots win.

“We have an opportunity,” said Rodney Harrison, a veteran defensive back who starred for New England in its last Super Bowl victory, three years ago over the Eagles, “to do something special, something that can last forever.”

Having won three Super Bowls in the last six years, the Patriots already have established themselves as a special team — the team of the decade, in the tradition of the Packers of the ’60s, the Steelers of the ’70, the 49ers of the ’80s, and the Cowboys of the ’90s.

If they go undefeated in winning their fourth Super Bowl in seven seasons, the Patriots will become a team for the ages.

If they beat the Giants to finish 19-0, they can stake a claim to being the greatest team in NFL history.

“We have three things we’re fighting for,” said Vince Wilfork, a defensive lineman in his third season with the Patriots, “winning the Super Bowl, going undefeated, and being one of the greatest teams ever.”

Improbable as it seems for a team to go undefeated in this era of a salary cap, free-agency, and scheduling that promotes parity, there was talk about the Patriots having a perfect season as early as September, when they started the year by winning one game after another by one-sided scores.

Indeed, there were many football fans around the country who thought coach Bill Belichick was running up the score when New England won its first eight games by an average margin of 25 points, outscoring its overmatched opponents 331-127.

The Patriots trounced the previously undefeated Cowboys in Dallas in Week Six, 48-27. They routed the Dolphins in Miami the following week, 49-28, then walloped Washington the week after that in Foxboro, 52-7.

When they went to Indianapolis and beat the previously unbeaten Colts — the defending NFL champions — 24-20, the pursuit of perfection began to look more like a probability than a possibility.

But the Patriots never looked ahead, focusing only on the next game. They didn’t focus on going undefeated, nor did they talk about their ongoing winning streak.

“I think [veteran linebacker] Tedy Bruschi summed it up,” said Harrison. “He said: ‘We’ve won one game, 18 times in a row.’ Now, we have to try to go out there and win one more.”

The pressure on the Patriots has mounted with every game.

“Once you get about 13, 14, 15 games won,” offensive guard Logan Mankins said, “you don’t want to mess it up. It makes for a long season.”

But an enjoyable one.

“The ‘pursuit of perfection,’ as everyone has labeled it, has had its challenges, but it’s been a heck of a ride,” fullback Heath Evans said.

The Giants, of course, are hoping to bring the Patriots’ joy ride to a crushing end.

“I’m sure a lot of people are rooting for the Patriots because they want to see history,” said Giants center Shaun O’Hara.

“But,” said New York wide receiver Amani Toomer, “we’re looking to make our own history. We’re looking to have one of the biggest Super Bowl upsets.”

It was the Patriots who had the last big upset in the Super Bowl. As two-touchdown underdogs in Super Bowl XXXVI, they stunned the offensively prolific St. Louis Rams, nicknamed “The Greatest Show on Turf,” 20-17, in New Orleans.

Now, favored by nearly two touchdowns, the Pats are determined not to become upset victims themselves.

“We know,” said offensive tackle Matt Light, “that if we go out there and fall short, it will put a dark shadow over everything we’ve worked so hard to accomplish.”

“We’re either going to have great memories of this experience,” Brady said, “or we’re going to look at it as truly a missed opportunity.”

They have an opportunity to make football history, to have a perfect, undefeated season.

It’s impossible to overhype, or overstate, the importance, the significance, the magnitude of that.

jdonalds@projo.com