Today We Spell Redemption, S-A-I-N-T-S

  

I’ve discussed at length why football brings about the emotions it so effortlessly coaxes from its followers. We don’t only find a reason to attach a ridiculous amount of our happiness to our team of choice, when they aren’t playing we muster up the energy to shift our hatred and exuberance elsewhere. For me, the result was a slightly irrational attachment to the Saints for a great number of reasons (bottom of the article). Their team is a series of cast-offs (Vilma, Brees, Colston), their coach gave up salary to get the defensive coordinator he wanted, and their city could obviously use a distraction, not to mention any financial windfall that winning might bring. As such, I was understandably nervous, given that if you had asked me before the game, I would have given an edge to the Colts, a.k.a. the team that doesn’t lose when it tries.

A quarter into the game, I was sufficiently shocked. The Colts are good, but they typically start slowly and build from there. They adjust at halftime, and if they haven’t sealed the game by the fourth quarter, Manning will simply summon his now requisite late-game heroics. Instead, they came out firing on all cylinders, and the Saints gained only 32 yards on two drives. I held little hope for a Saints comeback, and I assumed that the Colts really were as good as advertised, while the Saints had used up their luck in one too many close games and would fall one miracle short.

Then, slowly but surely, the tide changed and the roles reversed. The Saints regained the ability to put drives together, getting 131 yards on the next two drives, while the Colts got 15 on their next pair of possessions. The second ended in disappointment for the Saints, but they made the correct call on 4th and 1. The play will be converted the vast majority of the time, and they left the Colts with an extremely long field to traverse. If they had kicked a field goal, they would still have been down two field goals, and at that point the Colts had only failed to score once. When the Colts failed to get a single first down, the door was open for the Saints to move the ball into field goal range, and the kick was true. While the 10-6 score was not indicative of a Saints momentum shift, it was clear that they had some idea as to how to slow Manning down, and their offense was performing very well. Even though they were kicking to start the half, if they could stop the Colts they would almost certainly follow up with a score, and that outcome seemed probable given the change in the game’s dynamic.

Just as these thoughts crystallized in my mind, the second most shocking thing I have ever seen in a Super Bowl happened. (The first is still Harrison intercepting the pass for a touchdown last year. That was the last play of the half, and it swung the game by 14 points. I’d say it’s fairly impossible to top.) The Saints attempted the onside kick, and while it was sniffed out to some extent, Baskett was unable to read the ball well enough to be aggressive, and a Saint did an excellent job of punishing his indecision by shoving him to the ground. The ball bounced off of his face, and the Saints held the ball through the ensuing scrum.

Now, this was significant for a couple of reasons. First, it took a possession away from the Colts that they were expecting to have. While this may seem obvious, the Colts haven’t beaten good teams by large margins this season, and a single possession was likely to be significant in the outcome of the game. The Saints held the ball last in both halves, and they ended the game with 10 possessions to the Colts 8, excluding the interception. If the Saints did not recover the kick, they would likely have faced an even score, or something close to it. In other words, it was completely necessary to their victory, and not attempting the onside kick would likely have led to a loss, or at least a much greater chance for the Colts winning.

Second, their coach (Sean Payton) said after the game that he felt that the play had a 60-70% chance of succeeding. I don’t know what could possibly lead him to those numbers besides hubris, but it is nonetheless interesting that he was so resolute in his strategy. This suggests to me that he felt that the Colts were a superior team, and that he would need some luck to pull out a victory. Onside kicks are about the best way a team can create their own luck, and I don’t put it past a coach known for being as confident as Payton is to make up some numbers to convince his team of his strategy. He was going to be a hero or a goat depending on the outcome, in spite of the fact that it was likely as necessary a risk as the Saints felt it was. Results based justification is the norm in sports, and I’m happy that Payton chose the correct approach over the conventional one in spite of the criticism he would have received had the result been different.

But I digress.

The result of the drive after the onside kick felt inevitable. The Saints took the short and medium gains the Colts were allowing them, and an excellent run by Pierre Thomas gave the Saints the lead. At this point I was cautiously optimistic, knowing that while the Saints had temporarily stolen control of the game, Manning was stewing on the bench and itching to get back at the Saints.

Sure enough, he did just that. The Colts faced only two third downs on their drive, with 4 and 5 yards to go respectively. Bland and efficient would best describe their effortless march down the field, and much like the Saints on the prior drive, they simply took whatever the defense gave them. I had seen Manning do this so many times this season that I simply gave up hope. I knew the Saints would drive, and possibly score, but the Colts would always have the answer. Manning wasn’t going to be outdone.

The Saints did exactly that, and they made their only choice I disagreed with the entire game. Facing 4th and 3 from the Colts 29, they elected to take the 47-yard field goal. I felt that the decision was similar to the one they made on 4th and 1: field goals wouldn’t win the game, as they had to assume the Colts would score, so only touchdowns would suffice. In this case, they had the additional knowledge that the field goal was far from automatic, and that their offense could gain 3 yards almost on accident. Instead, they attempted and made the field goal, and gave the ball back to Manning on what I assumed would be another touchdown drive.

Instead, the Saints perfected the "bend but don’t break" strategy and left the Colts with a 4th and 11 from the Saints 33. This led to the only Colts decision I disagreed with: not going for the first down. As crazy as that may sound, the Colts Kicker (Stover) is not exactly a spring chicken at 42. He is also 13-32 on 50+ yard kicks for his career, and he was outside on a somewhat slippery field. The Colts chance of completing an 11 yard first down was probably in the range of 50-50 considering the amount of time Manning was getting to throw, and the Saints’ consistent blitzing meant that Manning would likely be able to find an opening. Some people have suggested that the Colts might have punted here, but the possibility of a touchback and a net gain of 11 yards as opposed to a 50-50 chance of keeping the ball doesn’t make sense to me. If nothing else, the chance of converting the 4th down  was probably higher than the chance of Stover making the field goal, and a failure would give the Saints 8 fewer yards than the field goal as well.

Once the field goal missed, for the first time in the game I felt like the Saints would win. They didn’t have the lead, and the Colts would get a rebuttal, but every drive had taken an eternity. If the Saints and Colts traded scoring possessions, the Saints would likely be able to claim the last possession, and the way their offense had been moving the ball scoring seemed to be a formality. True to this prediction, the Saints moved the ball as well as is conceivable against what was essentially a prevent defense. They didn’t face a third down once, gaining 58 yards in 9 plays and taking nearly 5 minutes off of the clock. The 2-point conversion was one of the most amazing plays I can remember, the receiver possessing the ball just long enough while on the ground to justify calling it a catch. I was certainly happy for the advent of high-speed cameras, as it was clear that Moore held the ball steady and over the goal line before it was knocked away. Yet another bit of luck for the Saints in a game in which they needed all of it.

The ensuing drive went according to the script in my head. The Colts gained 45 yards in 6 plays, and a tie game seemed inevitable. Then, as suddenly as the onside kick, Porter snatched the ball away and weaved through the 2 possible tacklers on his way to the end zone. 31-17 Saints, and the game was clearly over. It likely would have been over even if he had been tackled, as 3 minutes was not a great deal of time for the Saints to use up given the way their offense had been playing.

As an aside, the play was Wayne’s fault. He failed to cut across the front of his defender and left Porter an opening to jump in and steal the pass. Manning certainly should have recognized the bad cut on such a short route, but he is used to the route being run correctly, which it wasn’t. He still deserves a share of the blame, but this mistake wasn’t as inexplicable as the one Favre made two weeks prior.

The rest of the game was a formality. The Colts would never be able to score fast enough to make it a game, and the Saints once again bent but didn’t break, getting a stop on their own 5-yard line. New Orleans had its title, The Colts were chokers once more, and all was right with the world. Or at least that’s what you would think based upon what you might read elsewhere.

There are two main storylines that emerged from the game: the quarterback’s respective legacies, and the meaning of the victory for the city of New Orleans.

Regarding the former, Brees established himself as a likely hall-of-fame player. His last six seasons have been excellent, he has quietly amassed impressive numbers, and he has the most important credential a quarterback can have: a championship. Manning was somehow going to be in the conversation for greatest of all time had he won, which is patently ridiculous. He is an excellent quarterback who won a Super Bowl against a one-dimensional (read: mediocre) Bears team, and only did so because of an epic collapse on the part of the Patriots. Manning is 9-9 in the playoffs, and while he has been consistently excellent, and at times amazing, his teams are nearly always favored and yet rarely come through when it matters. He does not belong in the conversation for best ever. Yet.

As far as the meaning of the title to the city, I find much of the talk about how amazing it is for the populace to be disingenuous. To be clear, I am very happy for the city of New Orleans. I lived in Chicago during the Jordan years, and to say that he gave the city a sense of civic pride and identity would be an understatement. The Saints fans are passionate and dedicated, and this title will be something they can hold on to forever, a priceless memory that redeems a lifetime of fandom that had been filled with nothing but the dull sting of defeat, year after agonizing year.

It does not, however, build a single house, or bring back a single body. It does not heal the mental scars of a people who felt abandoned by their own country, nor does it change the fact that the something similar is likely to happen again someday. (Even if it is on a smaller scale, hurricanes in that region are as much a part of life as earthquakes in California. It is only a matter of when, not if, something similar happens again.) The city still has one of the highest murder rates in the country, its poorest citizens are still without their homes, and the vast majority of Americans have forgotten what transpired there because it doesn’t affect us. We rarely see the continued effects of Katrina, and rare is the person that  will dare mention that the owner of the Saints, Tom Benson, was desperate to move the team after Katrina, as he wanted a new stadium and a bigger market. Had the then NFL commissioner, Paul Tagliabue, not forced Benson to stay, we would likely be discussing the San Antonio Saints.

We wont discuss these things because they’re depressing, and this is football. We love sports because they are a distraction from real life, not because they serve as a reminder of painful and embarrassing incidents. The Saints’ fans love their team, and they channeled that love to became the best crowd in football. Drew Brees committed to his adopted city in a most admirable way, while simultaneously becoming the best leader in football. He is one of the only quarterbacks in the league that leads his teams’ pre-game ritual because of how respected he is, and the fans call him Breesus. He was once given up on, much like the city he has come to represent, and each needed this victory to feel legitimate, like they had accomplished something in the wake of their respective tragedies.

Football won’t save New Orleans, Super Bowl or no. But it can be a nice distraction from the realities of rebuilding, and give a city the pride it so sorely needs. In that sense, this really did mean more to the Saints than it possibly could have to any other team. For that reason, and that reason alone, I’m happy they won.

Lord knows it didn't come easy.

Image via NBC Sports

You can email Chris with questions or comments at TheSportsKiosK@gmail.com