The New England Patriots may not have achieved the perfect season, but Fox may have had the perfect Super Bowl, a fitting end to one of the stronger National Football League seasons in recent memory.

Last night’s Super Bowl had all the elements of a game that will be remembered for years to come. The New York Giants, two-touchdown underdogs, sprang a shocking upset on the 18-0 Patriots, who were hoping to become the first 19-0 team ever in the NFL and just the second to end the year undefeated.

The game between the two big-market teams stayed close throughout, featuring a record three fourth-quarter lead changes. The Giants scored the winning touchdown with less than a minute to play, and even then the Patriots seemed confident that they would overcome the 17-14 deficit. The New York defense, which was the difference-maker in the game, ensured they did not.

The moment the game ended, the pundits began debating whether it was the most exciting game in Super Bowl history and whether it marked the most improbable victory not just in NFL history but perhaps in any league championship.

Viewership numbers for the game won’t be out until midday, but many expect Fox to break the record for the 1996 Super Bowl, which drew just over 94 million viewers.

The strong Super Bowl came after a season of big viewership for the NFL on Fox, CBS and the NFL Network, though primetime packages on ESPN and NBC were down somewhat from the year before.

CBS’s Sunday afternoon AFC coverage rose 5 percent over last year, from a 9.7 to a 10.2, helped no doubt by frequent coverage of Patriots games and also the Indianapolis Colts, last year’s Super Bowl champs. Among adults 18-49, ratings jumped 9 percent, from a 5.5 to a 6.0, according to Nielsen data analyzed by Carat.

Fox’s Sunday afternoon NFC coverage finished 1 percent ahead of the previous year in households, averaging a 10.6 to 2006’s 10.5, with games for the Dallas Cowboys, Green Bay Packers and Giants all drawing strong viewership. Among 18-49s, viewership rose 3 percent, from a 6.1 to 6.3.

And the NFC Championship game two weeks ago on Fox drew not just the largest crowd of the season for any network, with 53.9 million viewers, but the biggest audience for any non-Super Bowl program since the 1998 “Seinfeld” finale.

NFL Network saw a huge spike in its ratings for Thursday and Saturday primetime games, though that came from a very small base in 2006. It was up 29 percent in households, from a 2.4 to a 3.1, and 33 percent in 18-49s, from a 1.5 to a 2.0.

ESPN and NBC, meanwhile, were both down 10 percent in households though each scored a series-best rating for Patriots games.

The ratings increases were particularly notable as viewership for nearly everything in primetime continues to dip this year, something networks have attributed in part to an increase in digital video recorder usage.

That makes the NFL an even more attractive venue for advertisers worried about their ads being recorded and viewed later.