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Line of Scrimmage: Saints' Night, Manning's Nightmare

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02/07/2010 - Miami Gardens, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Raise your umbrella and your Hurricane glass to the New Orleans Saints, who are Super Bowl XLIV champions because they were flat-out better than the Colts in an incredible, exhilarating upset victory that capped off a dream season.

And as you pat the undeniably likable Saints on the back, weep for the equally likable Peyton Manning.

This is one that Manning will have to carry with him for the rest of his days, irrespective of whether he raises another Lombardi Trophy or he doesn't. This was not just a Super Bowl loss. This was a Super Bowl loss to THE SAINTS.

Manning can now look forward to the fact that, in every trip he makes to his native New Orleans for the rest of his life, he will get to listen to his high school buddies and his parents' neighbors and the guy at the rental car counter and the waitress at the restaurant remind him that he lost to the Saints. This will be horrendous, like losing a game of ping-pong to your loudmouth brother-in-law who will never, ever let you forget, and also refuses to play you again.

OK, for Manning, it might just be worse than that. Every accomplishment he will ever accumulate over the rest of his career will be answered by New Orleanians with one, four-word utterance.

A Hall of Fame plaque? Didn't beat the Saints.

Every meaningful NFL passing record? Didn't beat the Saints.

Another Super Bowl title? Didn't beat the Saints (presumably).

Look, Manning is a popular figure in New Orleans, and this is the way it had to be if the Saints wanted to win the first title in their 43-year history. But isn't it ironic that the bone of contention in elevating Manning (31- of-45, 333 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT) into the discussion of the greatest ever is a loss to his dad's team, to the team whose uniform he used to wear in his backyard as a youth?

Meanwhile, if it hadn't been passed already, the torch of local quarterbacking hero was transferred in Miami from the native Manning to the meticulous Texan Drew Brees. Brees was surgical against the Colts, completing 32-of-39 passes for 288 yards and two touchdowns and winning MVP honors in runaway fashion.

Over the final three quarters, in which the Saints outscored the Colts, 31-7, Brees was a mere 29-of-32 for 261 yards, two touchdowns, and no turnovers. He threw one incompletion in the second-half. One. Don't go looking for another Super Bowl performance like that any time soon. Any lingering doubts about whether Brees was just a fantasy stud, a figure like Marino, Fouts or Moon who was a great numbers guy but lacked whatever it took to be a champion, blew away like the ticker-tape littering the Sun Life Stadium field.

Brees, at six-feet-tall in the right shoes, is never going to be the most physically imposing guy in the quarterback club. But with this win, which came just four years after he suffered a potentially career-threatening shoulder injury as a Charger, he has just given pause to every scout who would dismiss a quarterback prospect that lacks something called "an NFL body." Ryan Leaf had a great NFL body, by the way.

Brees' head coach, Sean Payton, was vindicated as well. Many of us scratched our heads back in the winter of 2006, when Payton took on what seemed like a near-hopeless case, one that transcended football. Why, we wondered, would one of the hottest assistants in the NFL accept a job in a destroyed American city, for a team that didn't look ready to win any time soon, for an owner that seemed ready to move his team to San Antonio or Los Angeles or somewhere else? Clearly, Payton saw something the rest of us didn't.

And here he is. A champion and a deserving one.

Then there is New Orleans, the Crescent City, which wins its first major sports championship in thrilling fashion. Much will be made of the Saints' mission to lift spirits in a region that is still working hard to recover from the effects of Hurricane Katrina.

Well, that tale, however heart-warming, is awkwardly told. I'm not quite sure what the Saints fans in Miami who could afford $1500 Super Bowl tickets have to do with the families of the Lower Ninth Ward whose lives were torn apart in August of 2005, but let's hope they can all find some common ground by celebrating the accomplishments of this football team.

Where do the Saints go from here? Hard to say. This should be a very good team again next year, though there are some free agent decisions to be made and who knows whether this season's unbelievable chemistry will hold. Given the ramifications of the broken-down labor talks, and the effect a potential elimination of the salary cap will have on small-market teams, who's to say whether the Saints will be able to compete 10 or even five years down the line.

But these questions are for another time and place. For now, it's on to Mardi Gras, which this year, even more than most, will be one of the wildest celebrations the City of New Orleans has ever seen.

PICKING A WINNER

Though Brees' play will likely serve to define Super Bowl XLIV, the enduring single moment of the game will probably be Tracy Porter's game-sealing 74-yard interception return for a touchdown in the fourth quarter. Down 24-17, Manning had driven the Colts to the Saints 31-yard line, where he had a 3rd- and-5 play. Porter stepped in front of a short pass intended for Reggie Wayne, dashing untouched to the end zone as the pro-New Orleans contingent exploded.

"It was great film study," said Porter of the play. "We knew that on third- and-short they stack, and they like the outside release for the slant. It was great film study by me, a great jump and a great play."

Including the regular season, the Saints defense scored eight touchdowns in 2010.

"It's the kind of play we've run a lot and Porter just made a great play," Manning said.

ANKLES AWAY

After two weeks of talk about the health of his right ankle, Colts defensive end Dwight Freeney did in fact suit up for Indianapolis, and had the game's only sack when he dragged down Brees in the second quarter. That said, the perennial Pro Bowler appeared to be favoring the ankle as the game wore on, and Freeney admitted that it stiffened up on him at halftime. Westwood One's Mark Malone revealed in a sideline report that Freeney's swollen ankle and calf were roughly the same size as the player was being re-taped.

"It's hard to put percentages on it," Freeney said of his health. "Obviously it wasn't 100 [percent]. It was kind of hard. It loosened a little bit in the second half.

THE GAMBLER

Once it worked, once it didn't. Payton rolled the dice with his team trailing 10-3 late in the second quarter, opting to leave his offense on the field on a 4th-and-goal play at the 1-yard line. Pierre Thomas was stood up by linebacker Gary Brackett on the play, handing the ball back to Indianapolis and snuffing out the Saints' best touchdown chance up to that point. New Orleans would, however, force a punt and cut the halftime lead to 10-6 on Hartley's second field goal of the game.

Clearly, Payton's gambling spirit wasn't diminished by the failure. The Saints stunned the Colts by attempting, and recovering, an onside kick to start the second half. Six plays after Jonathan Casillas made the recovery, Brees hit running back Pierre Thomas on a 16-yard screen pass for a touchdown to give the Saints their first lead at 13-10.

"We knew we were going to call it at some point, and we made the decision we were going to do it [at halftime]," Payton said of the onside kick. "At halftime I just told them, 'Hey, we're going to open up the second half with this. It's going to be a great play.'"

OFFICIALLY SPEAKING

Scott Green's officiating crew was not without a few hiccups in Super Bowl XLIV, though to the crew's credit, there was not a call that directly affected the outcome of the contest.

The most controversial decision came in the fourth quarter, when Green overturned a two-point conversion catch by Lance Moore that had been ruled incomplete. Moore did not complete the catch all the way to the ground, and similar plays in the end zone (such as a TD catch by the Raiders' Louis Murphy in Week 1) had been ruled incomplete all season. According to CBS' Boomer Esiason, NFL Director of Officials Mike Pereira said the call was the correct one, because as soon as the ball breaks the plane of the goal line, it's a dead play. That explanation would seem to conflict with previous NFL rulings, though again, it did not impact the final score.

The other major miss came on the Saints' first points of the game. Tackle Zach Strief ran onto the field late and did not report as eligible on Garrett Hartley's second-quarter field goal, which should have resulted in a procedure penalty that pushed the distance of the trifecta from 46 to 51 yards.

ODDS AND ENDS

-Colts coach Jim Caldwell, who was the first rookie coach to reach a Super Bowl since the Raiders' Bill Callahan in 2002, failed to become the first rookie since the 49ers' George Seifert in 1989 to win the big one.

-Saints kicker Garrett Hartley connected on field goals of 46, 44, and 47 yards, becoming the first player in Super Bowl history to hit three field goals of 40 yards or longer.

-The Saints overcame a 10-point deficit, matching the biggest comeback in NFL history. The 1989 Redskins were behind against the Broncos, 10-0, in Super Bowl XXII before winning the game, 42-10.

-At 42 years of age, Colts kicker Matt Stover became the oldest player in Super Bowl history. Stover kicked off the scoring with a 38-yard field goal in the first-quarter, and made two extra-points following Colts touchdowns. Stover also attempted a 51-yard field goal in the fourth quarter, which he missed. Stover had been 0-for-3 from 50 yards plus since 2007, with his last make from that distance coming as a member of the Ravens in 2006.

-Brees' 32 completions tied a Super Bowl record, matching Tom Brady's mark set against the Panthers in Super Bowl XXXVIII.

-With their win, the Saints join the Ravens, Jets, and Buccaneers as teams to prevail in their lone Super Bowl appearance.

-The Saints are the first No. 1 seed to win the Super Bowl since the 2003 Patriots, and the first No. 1 seed from the NFC to take home the title since the 1999 Rams. New Orleans is also the first club since that St. Louis squad to win a Super Bowl after leading the league in scoring.

-During their playoff run, the Saints defeated three quarterbacks - Manning, Brett Favre, and Kurt Warner - who had previously won Super Bowls. No other team in NFL history has accomplished that feat.

"WHO" ELSE WAS LEFT YAWNING?

I'm a pretty decent-sized fan of the The Who. I own Tommy, a couple of Pete Townshend solo albums, and am glad I can now say I saw them play in a live setting. But their halftime mini-set of four songs (including the "See Me, Feel Me" interlude from Tommy) that have been pummeled to death on classic rock radio over the past 25 years, before being run out on the ubiquitous CSI series, left much to be desired. Again, I'm very grateful that the NFL didn't try to pass off world-class hacks Bon Jovi as halftime entertainment, but now that all of the monsters of another generation (McCartney, Petty, Springsteen, and the Stones) have taken their Super Bowl turn, it might be time for the league to re-think the halftime concept.

As for the pregame, while I generally think Carrie Underwood is what is wrong with country music (though not as much as Kenny Chesney), I'm happy to report I thought her understated, classy rendition of the national anthem was very well done. Queen Latifah's "America the Beautiful," meanwhile, was as embarrassing as her and Underwood's eye-rolling Thursday afternoon press conference.

TAKING A BOW

Jerry Rice and Emmitt Smith were the big story when the Pro Football Hall of Fame class was announced on Saturday, though Redskins o-lineman Russ Grimm, Saints pass rusher Rickey Jackson, Vikings defensive tackle John Randle, and two veteran's committee selections - Broncos running back Floyd Little and Lions cornerback Dick LeBeau - were named to the 2010 class as well. Rice and Smith, the NFL's all-time leading receiver and rusher, respectively, figure to hog the spotlight at the induction ceremonies on Aug. 7 in Canton, OH.

Among those who fell short of the votes needed for induction were Vikings wide receiver Cris Carter, Broncos/Ravens tight end Shannon Sharpe, 49ers/Cowboys pass rusher Charles Haley, Bills receiver Andre Reed, Raiders receiver Tim Brown, and Seahawks defensive end Cortez Kennedy, among others. In my mind, the biggest snubs were Carter (who didn't even make the cut-down from 17 to 10, inexplicably) and Sharpe, both of whom had Hall of Fame careers but reflect an apparent bias among Hall of Fame voters against pass-catchers (remember how long it took Art Monk to get in?). Then again, any receiver who made the field in the same year as Rice would have looked puny in comparison.

SUNSHINE STATE SUPERLATIVES

Kudos to the South Florida Super Bowl committee for another job well done in hosting Super Bowl XLIV. After 10 Super Bowls, this is a group that knows what it's doing, and it shows. Three years ago, all of the media festivities took place in Miami. This year they were in Fort Lauderdale, which was a dramatic improvement in terms of location. All of the media hotels were within walking distance of the media center, which is a first for the six Super Bowls I've covered. Next year's event, at the palatial new Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, TX, should be a spectacle to say the least.