Who Dat! Payton’s guts, Brees’ arm, and Porter’s hands lead Saints to Super Bowl victory
Behind by four heading to the third quarter of Super Bowl forty-four, New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton did not want to put the ball in the hands of one of the best quarterbacks in history, Indianapolis Colts’ Peyton Manning, so he made the gutsiest call of his coaching career in the biggest game in franchise history. His kicking team lined up to kick off to the Colts, but they stunned their favored opponent by chipping the ball 15 yards sideways. The ball ricochet off a Colt, meaning it was fair game, and was recovered by Jonathan Casillas, a Saints linebacker and special teams player extraordinaire. With this call by Payton and recovery by a jubilant Casillas, momentum had shifted into New Orleans favor, momentum Who Dat? Nation would ride to their first Super Bowl victory in their first Super Bowl appearance.
The drive that was made possible by Payton and Casillas resulted in a shifty 16-yard touchdown run by Pierre Thomas, one of the better running backs in the league. With that, the Saints erased a ten-point deficit and took the lead, leading to a raucous cheer from the 70-plus thousand Saints fans in the stadium, the other countless thousands on Bourbon Street, and the millions of others across the nation that relished in their feel-good story.
Manning responded, orchestrating a lengthy drive that put the Colts ahead on a four-run run by a Joseph Addai, who picked apart the Saints defense on the possession. Despite regaining the lead, a lot more would be needed if Indianapolis wanted to win on the biggest stage. New Orleans had a swagger that read ‘whatever you can do I can do better.’ They, led by quarterback Drew Brees, were not to be denied.
Fueled by a 34-yard kickoff return by Courtney Roby, Brees marched his Saints down the field, tossing two twelve-yard completions to anchor a drive that halted at Indianapolis’s 29-yard line. Garrett Hartley, who didn’t have a 40-plus yard field goal during the regular season, kicked his third 40-plus yard field goal of the game, splitting the uprights from a lengthy forty-seven. New Orleans was now within one entering the final period.
Colts head coach Jim Caldwell tried had similar confidence in his kicker, 42-year old Matt Stover, but his gamble didn’t pay off. Stopped at the Saints 33-yard line on third-down incompletion by Manning, Caldwell sent out the oldest player in Super Bowl player in history to attempt a 51-yard field goal. Earlier this season the Colts placed one of the clutchest kickers in history, Adam Vinatieri, on injured reserve after he underwent knee surgery. Vinatieri watched from the sideline in his sixth Super Bowl, and watched helplessly as his replacement hit turf before ball and kicked a potential lead-lengthening kick wide-left, giving Brees and New Orleans prime field position.
Brees turned the Colts miss into points, completing all eight passes he threw on their game deciding. The wealth was wide-spead: a 5-yarder to Thomas, a 6-yarder to Devery Henderson, a 8-yarder to Reggie Bush, another 8-yarder to Marques Colston, a 6-yarder to Robert Meachem, and then the final two to two more receivers. The first, a 2-yard snag by tight end Jeremy Shockey, gave Brees his second touchdown of the game and the Saints a five-point lead. Then the second: Lance Moore snatched their attempted two-point conversion before reaching the goal line, stretched into the endzone spinning on his head, and held possession (upon further review) long enough to give New Orleans a seven-point advantage.
Manning had plenty of time, and struck fear into Who Dat? Nation by doing what makes him a future Hall of Famer. Cool, calm, and collected, he efficiently orchestrated a drive deep into Saints territory, completing five of his first six passes for forty-four yards. His seventh throw on the drive, however, didn’t end well for him and his Colts. On a 3rd and 5 at New Orleans 31-yard line, he tried to find Reggie Wayne, but 23-year old second-year cornerback Tracy Porter etched his name into Super Bowl and Saints lore, jumping in front of Wayne. He picked off the pass, bobbled it, then secured it and bolted downfield. A few dejected and helpless Colts tried to chase him down, but, after directing traffic and making a cut around the only Colt of real threat, they could only watch Porter glide into the endzone, celebrate with his teammates, and motion happily to the raucous Saints fans blanketing the seats in front of him. With a Hartley extra-point the Saints not only held a fourteen-point lead, but were well on their way to victory.
Manning tried to lead his troops downfield, and they got as close as the five-yard line, but their last chance fell incomplete. The Saints, with a kneel-down by Brees, watched confetti stream down and their fans dance in the isles and basked in a win dedicated to New Orleans, a city that, after suffering through a many forgettable years and multiple devastating hurricanes, relished in a first by their franchise.
Cashed in on a $300 parlay Saints and the under, to collect $1084!
Sweet.
I can’t remember the last time I bet on sports. About 50% of the time I will bet $50-$100 on the horse racing triple crown and the Breeders Cup Classic, but I had to make an exception.
The Saints were the best team if football this year, but all of the boobs that really don’t follow the game or even bet it regularly all went for the Colts, because Peyton Manning winning the Super Bowl in a high scoring shootout was the big media narrative going in.
This confirms all of what I have been saying. We have had media narratives in politics forever, but now we even have them in sports and that is new, and appalling.
Think about it, probably like 80% of all NFL games are within 7 points of the spread, with the vast majority being within 3 points. That means it is all just luck, because a mere bounce of the ball can swing the spread.
Vegas is that meticulous in setting the spread.
The fact that in the biggest game of the year, which sees the biggest action of the year, for example more money is bet on an NFL Sunday than is bet over the entire baseball season, and the Super Bowl is like a typical NFL weekend times 10, historically, the action coming in on both sides would almost always bring the final score within 3 points of the spread.
That didn’t happen this year and the reason why it didn’t happen is because of the media using narrative to shape public opinion.
The spread was off by a whopping 18.5 points, which doesn’t even happen 10% of the time in season, maybe even less than 5%, so this happening in the Super Bowl is huge, and this wasn’t the Giants beating the Patriots, or the Jets beating the Colts.
It was a well played game, but this is not a historic upset.
Even the over under was off by 9 points, which is a large margin, which would have been a whopping 16 points had the Saints been tackled in the field of play on the interception and then run out the clock.
This demonstrates an important point, because the novice bettor didn’t swing both spreads with his $100 in action.
No, what swung the spread was the action of the experienced gambler, the kind of people who are betting $1000 a game in season and who bet $10,000 or more in the Super Bowl.
EVEN THE MOST KNOWLEDGEABLE PEOPLE CAN BE UNKNOWINGLY MANIPULATED BY MEDIA BIAS THROUGH THE USE OF NARRATIVES.
THIS IS WHAT GOEBBELS CALLED PROPAGANDA!
The Saints were the best team in football this season, with one of the best defenses, and the Colts had their best pass rusher hurt, and struggled in the running game all season. As for the under/over it was so highly unlikely that both teams would come out at the start of the game and open it up. This is the Super Bowl, and nobody wants to make a big mistake early, so both teams end up doing what fighters do in a big title fight, they come out and feel each other out, and dance around and jab. So the under was a lock by halftime when the score was 10-6.
Now I won my bet, but that is not the real point I am trying to make.
As a writer, you MUST always be cognizant of narratives everywhere, in sports, and elsewhere. You can’t allow yourself to be bought into the narratives of others, who sometimes create the narratives that they do due to a political agenda, but also just as often the media will do what they did with this Super Bowl and that is just establish a narrative out of laziness.
This Super Bowl had allot of stories coming in, however the media substantively ignored most of them, that is except one, which was that the great Peyton Manning cements his place in the Hall of Fame by winning a shootout.
Like the NY Times and Washington Post do for hard news, they establish the narratives in the morning and then the networks follow them at night and then the lesser newspapers repeat them the following morning, ESPN sets the narratives in sports and print journalists just run with it.
For the vast majority of those who were covering the event, it was much easier to just doing a little cut and paste, then sprinkle in a few quotes, and hit send, and then hustle over to the hospitality tent before they missed anything that was really important.
When you ignore the narratives of others and do your work instead of going through the motions and being lazy, sooner or later you will stand out, and that is how you will move up.
Nice payday, Eric. The Saints definitely deserved this. High drama, a city celebrating in the streets, a few gutsy calls, and interception lead to the Saints first Super Bowl. What a game.