One more football season goes in the books after another great Super Bowl game. The New Orleans Saints’ 31-17 victory against the Indianapolis Colts Sunday brought their city a new hope—and a reason to extend Mardi Gras an extra week.
While Tracy Porter’s pick-six of Peyton Manning was the game’s defining play, Drew Brees, with his pin-point accuracy, was most deserving of the Most Valuable Player award. Not only did he upstage the league’s MVP on the biggest stage, but he took that final step to rising to the highest echelon of NFL quarterbacks.
What’s appreciative of how the Saints beat the “mighty” Colts was that Brees beat them at their own game. The Colts always have played using the vanilla, cover-2 defense to take advantage of their speed and hide their lack of physicality and athleticism. The Saints couldn’t throw deep down the field, so they just methodically tore through their defense. The Colts could not tackle the quicker, stronger, more athletic Saints playmakers.
While Brees’ legacy may just be beginning, a lot of questions now surround Manning. Back to that interception: that throw was all on him. Reggie Wayne made a nice cut, Porter reacted, but the ball simply was way off target. Plain and simple.
So does one throw define Manning’s legacy? Of course not. But several of them do. It’s hard to ignore the fact that Manning is only 9-9 in the postseason and 1-1 in Super Bowls. Remember the four-INT game against New England? And his struggles against the Steelers and Chargers in recent years? And he was fortunate not to play the Saints in 2006, when the Bears, with their shaky, inexperienced quarterback Rex Grossman, gift-wrapped the game in the final quarter.
Manning is good and has numbers that may be Hall-of-Fame worthy. But do quarterbacks like the great Joe Montana, Troy Aikman or Tom Brady throw an INT at such a crucial point in the biggest game in sports? Absolutely not. Montana went four Super Bowls without throwing a single INT. Even Ben Roethlisberger made a defining throw in last year’s Super Bowl with that unbelievable toss to Santonio Holmes.
Hopefully people stop with the nonsense of the-greatest-QB-ever talk with Manning, at least for quite a while.
Other Super observations
Did the referees actually get a crucial call correct? That was a great challenge by Saints coach Sean Payton, though a wrong call wouldn’t have cost them.
It’s a good thing the Saints play indoors, because they were slipping and sliding all over the place. Get some better cleats or something.
Members of “The Who” need to learn to tuck in their shirts. That “wardrobe malfunction” was almost as bad as a certain other one.
There were plenty of really good commercials this year, like Brett Favre’s retirement saga: Year 2020 (which is entirely within the realm of possibility with this on-again off-again guy). Bud Light Survivor Island and “Bud Light from a fridge made of Bud Light” were instant classics. And the Jay Leno-Oprah Winfrey-David Letterman sob story was clever. Too bad Conan O’Brian didn’t get back with them in time to join the party.
There’s already way too many people chanting “Who Dat” like they’re really Saints fans. It’s great that the Saints won, but come on, don’t jump on the bandwagon after they just won. I’m just saying.
