There it was out in the open: the question that will consume worried New Englanders throughout the off-season.

Brady did nothing to diminish his standing over 60 minutes of football. Trailing by 22-12 at halftime, he led the Patriots on three straight touchdown drives. He pinpointed his receivers like a sharpshooter at a carnival arcade, beating back the Eagles’ celebrations each time they seemed to have put the Pats away.

There was little doubt during much of the game that Brady was the best player on the field. That’s no knock on Foles, who finished with 373 passing yards and three touchdowns (plus a fourth he caught himself) and who, most important of all, brought Philadelphia its first Super Bowl championship.

Foles all but levitated with joy afterward. He showed up for postgame interviews with his shoulder pads still on and an aw-shucks smile on his face. Heck yeah, he had been nervous.

“I’ve never been here before,” he said. “So there are normal nerves — you’ve got butterflies. It’s a big game. It doesn’t get any bigger than this. But I felt good, felt calm. I think the big thing that helped me was knowing I didn’t have to be Superman.”

But Foles, 29, was Superman — at least for one day. He knew it, too, and tried to explain how it felt. “Time does stop,” he said.

Don’t tell Brady that.

Brady had prompted the postgame questions about his return by making no secret that he intended to play the game for a long time.