I admit it: I was pretty confident in my pick of the Colts over the Saints in Super Bowl XLIV. I was sold on Peyton Manning’s ability to dissect any defense, including a New Orleans unit that was ranked 25th in the league in the regular season. And the fact that the Colts had won every game they had tried to win all season carried a lot of weight with me. I picked Indianapolis by seven, but I felt that unless the Saints played almost flawlessly, it would be worse for the NFC champs.
Well, the Saints were almost flawless and the Colts were flawed, setting up an upset not of epic proportions -- New Orleans went 13-0 before losing, you’ll recall, and took care of teams led by Kurt Warner and Brett Favre in the NFC playoffs -- but of enough impact that Manning and Co. will be chewing on this one for quite a while, and maybe the rest of their lives.
Indy outgained New Orleans, 432 yards to 332, holding the advantage on both the ground and in the air, but that was the only significant measure by which it had the edge Sunday. The Saints were the better team, and their 31-17 margin of victory was only a slightly stretched representation of by how much. The Saints are world champions for a number of rather clear reasons.
Drew Brees outplayed Manning
Brees completed a Super Bowl-record 32 passes (tied with Tom Brady) in 39 attempts, and his 82.1 completion rate was the second best in Super Bowl history. Think about that: Only seven of Brees’ 39 passes fell incomplete -- one of those was a clock-killing spike -- and not one was picked off. Phenomenal. He also threw for 288 yards and two touchdowns.
Manning didn’t have a bad game at all; he threw for 333 yards and a touchdown on 31-of-45 passing, and his 19-yard touchdown pass to Pierre Garcon and 27-yard completion to Dallas Clark were two of the prettiest, most precise passes you’ll ever see. But Manning also made a key mistake late in the game, just as Favre had done against New Orleans in the NFC title game. With the Colts driving for a potential game-tying touchdown at the New Orleans 31 with 3:24 to play, Saints cornerback Tracy Porter jumped Reggie Wayne’s route and returned a pick of Manning 74 yards for a touchdown.
Both quarterbacks played well. But Brees played magnificently.
Sean Payton outcoached Jim Caldwell
The Saints got to the Super Bowl thanks to aggressive playcalling all season long, and Payton didn’t go into a shell just because the stage got bigger. He opened the second half with a gutsy onside kick that caught the Colts napping and gave Brees a short field and the Saints an extra possession. Six plays later the Saints had a touchdown and their first lead of the game. A similarly bold call -- going for a touchdown on fourth-and-goal at the Indy 1 late in the first half -- backfired, but Payton trusted his defense to get the ball back, and when it did the Saints still kicked a field goal to close out the half. And after they regained the lead with under six minutes to play, Payton successfully challenged an official’s call that had negated the Saints’ two-point conversion attempt.
Payton also developed an offensive game plan that produced 24 points, more than Indy’s two AFC playoff opponents had combined to score. The Colts were all about preventing the big play, so Brees dinked and dunked his way down the field, gathering first downs and, most important, keeping Manning off the field for long stretches. The Saints’ longest offensive play was only 27 yards and they had only one other of more than 20 yards, but they reached pay dirt more often than the Colts. Which brings me to Gregg Williams, the defensive coordinator who decided not to worry much about the running game and to focus on stopping Manning. He threw Manning plenty of different looks -- 3-4 for a while, then 4-3 for a spell, some man, some zone -- and while Manning never looked rattled, he did finally make a critical goof. After giving up 10 first-quarter points, New Orleans allowed only one more score the rest of the way.
As for Caldwell, he had one major gaffe. When a Colts drive that began on their 11-yard line stalled at the New Orleans 33 five minutes into the fourth quarter, Caldwell sent 42-yard-old Matt Stover out to attempt a 51-yard field goal. Stover hadn’t made a 50-yarder in three years, and his kick, predictably, missed. That gave Brees another short field, and nine plays later the Saints had the lead again -- this time for good.
The Saints simply made fewer mistakes
Brees overthrew Robert Meachem on a deep pass. Marques Colston dropped a very catchable ball. The Saints turned the ball over on downs when two plays from the Indy 1 failed to produce a touchdown. And that just about sums up the Saints’ miscues for the day.
The Colts hardly looked like the Keystone Kops, but they did have some key drops, including one by Garcon that killed a promising drive and one by Wayne that would have pulled Indy back within seven points late in the game. There were some missed tackles, an occasional blown defensive assignment. Hank Baskett failed to smother the onside kick. The Colts had five penalties for 45 yards, the Saints only three for 19. And there was Porter’s pick-six of Manning that all but put the game on ice for New Orleans. Winning Super Bowl teams have played messier games than Indy did Sunday. But the Saints’ clean performance didn’t leave the Colts much room for error.
A few other quick observations:
Manning’s legacy took a hit
Funny how one game’s outcome can swing perception so strongly one way or the other. Had the Colts won, Manning would have two rings to go along with iron-man status and monstrous stats, and scribes hither and yon would be proclaiming him perhaps the greatest quarterback of all time. Heck, some would drop “perhaps” altogether. But the loss leaves Manning with as many Super Bowl rings as his brother Eli, and he again must battle criticism that he can’t win The Big One. He’s a future Hall of Famer for sure, but we’ll have to hold off on anointing him The Best Ever for a while longer.
Losing the Super Bowl doesn’t make Caldwell wrong for resting his starters
Caldwell pulled Manning and his first-string mates in Week 16 because he wanted to keep them healthy for the playoffs. He achieved that, giving his team the best chance to win the Super Bowl -- which is what it’s all about. That his team failed was a result of being outplayed, not his refusal to pursue perfection.
Team of destiny? Sounds good, but …
Not to get all philosophical on you or anything, but I’m not big on destiny. I believe things happen because people make choices and act accordingly, not because of predetermination and fate. So I don’t buy all this talk of the Saints being a team of destiny. They won because they played better than the Colts. That said, here’s to the good people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region, who deserve a reason to celebrate.
The Who don’t rock like they used to
Maybe it was the fact that The Who have been performing longer than the Saints have existed and most of the crowd probably recognized “Who Are You” only as the CSI theme song. Maybe it was that Who songs need room to breathe; medleys don’t work for a group that writes rock operas, for cryin’ out loud. And maybe it’s because Keith Moon and John Entwistle are long gone. But I’ve paid to see The Who, and this halftime performance left me decidedly unimpressed.
But Betty White still rocks
Speaking of geriatrics, the placement of White, still a comedic genius at age 88, and Abe Vigoda on the football field for a Snickers ad was inspired. Even more so than a casket full of Doritos and a milk-aholic.
