The All-Joes stunned the All-Pros, but recent history shows that this is hardly an aberration.

In beating the New England Patriots, the New York Giants proved a modern-day football trend: teams, not individual superstars, are what ultimately bring you Super Bowl success.

Ironically, it was the Pats themselves that began teaching us this lesson.

In the 2001-2002 season, New England was an upstart team led by Tom Brady, an unknown quarterback who had trouble winning a starting job in college, and Bill Belichick, a previous failure as a head coach. Yet they were a team in every sense of the word: units played very well together, but, with the exception of the defensive backfield, there were few superstars.

They entered Super Bowl XXXVI as 14-point underdogs to the St. Louis Rams, then the “Greatest Show on Turf.” That year, NFL MVP Kurt Warner, along with the deadly Marshall Faulk — the NFL’s Offensive Player of the Year — and receivers Isaac Bruce and Torry Holt would lead the Rams to their second championship game in three years.

Instead of having individual player introductions at the start of the game, the Patriots ran out as a team — a ritual nearly every Super Bowl participant has copied since — and history ran its course: behind the passing of Brady and the leg of Adam Vinatieri, the Patriots pulled off the 20-17 upset.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Pittsburgh Steelers, who have both won championships since, relied on a host of players and on dominant defenses during their Super Bowl victories. Last year’s champion, the Indianapolis Colts, come closest to disproving this rule — the team was guided by star quarterback Peyton Manning but won their championship on the coattails of their unheralded defensive unit.

New England’s other two Super Bowl squads embodied this team image as much as the first — though they were no longer the unknowns they were in 2002, they had few superstars. Everyone was a contributor, and no player was above another — New England cut Pro-Bowl safety Lawyer Milloy before the 2003 season for refusing to restructure his contract for the benefit of the organization.

But fast-forward to the 2007 season. The Patriots are a loaded team: Brady is armed with Randy Moss, perhaps the best receiver in football, and Lawrence Maroney, a second-year back with great potential. New England added Adalius Thomas, one of the biggest free-agent signings of the off-season, franchised star cornerback Asante Samuel and signed Wes Welker, arguably the best slot receiver in the NFL.

With such an arsenal at hand, the Patriots went on to finish the regular season undefeated. They had the best offense in NFL history and a top-ranked defense. The team, Brady and Moss all set NFL records. The Pats sent eight players to the Pro Bowl, the most in the AFC.

A 19-0 finish was all but guaranteed, and fans began making shirts celebrating their perfection — the Boston Globe started accepting pre-orders for a book entitled “19-0: The Historical Championship Season of New England’s Unbeatable Patriots.”

But then they ran into the Giants, a 10-6 wildcard team with one Pro Bowler and a bunch of misfits, as defensive end Michael Strahan called them.

The Patriots’ offensive line, which sent three players to the Pro Bowl, was manhandled by the Giants’ defensive front — they received a rare “F” from Sports Illustrated for their “effort.” Brady, who is rarely hit, was pummeled routinely, and the eerie confidence that he so often displays seemed to vanish from his eyes.

The Giants’ secondary, criticized heavily throughout the season, prevented anything deep, right up until the Pats’ final series when Corey Webster tipped away a sure touchdown from Brady to Moss. The Giants forced three-and-outs all game and held the most lethal offense in history to just 14 points. Writer Dan Shanoff called it the “greatest performance by a defense in Super Bowl history.”

Giants defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo’s schemes rely on cohesion among all 11 players: he blitzes more often than not, which requires his men in coverage to be especially aware. The entire defense, and not just a few star defenders, had to show up, and they did.

Eli Manning, the much-maligned Giants quarterback who seemed to turn the proverbial corner in the playoffs, guided the offense to two touchdowns in the fourth quarter. The final one came with just 35 seconds left with the Pats up by four.

The drive was highlighted by David Tyree, a reserve receiver who caught a third-down pass from Manning — after the quarterback miraculously evaded a number of pass rushers — behind his head for a 32-yard gain. Shanoff, no Giants fan, called this “the single greatest play in Super Bowl history.”

After Eli hoisted a touchdown pass to the audacious Plaxico Burress, the Patriots got one more crack on offense. But Webster’s tip sealed the win, and the Giants, a scrappy bunch with few stars, knocked off the juggernaut known as the New England Patriots.

Don’t let anyone tell you differently: the Giants won the Super Bowl much more than the Pats lost it. And they did it as a team.