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| Drew Brees was Super Bowl XLIV MVP. |
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MIAMI - Maybe it was having the guts to call that onside kick.
Maybe it was the message sent going for it on fourth down at the one.
Maybe it was the courage to challenge the call on the two-point conversion.
May be it was Colts kicker Matt Stover missing his first postseason field-goal attempt in the last 17.
Maybe it was the nerve to call that blitz on third-and-five at your own 31-yard line against the master blitz-buster Peyton Manning, who of all things gets picked off by Saints cornerback Tracy Porter for the game-sealing touchdown, incredibly the same Tracy Porter who picked off Brett Favre in the waning seconds of the NFC title game to force overtime.
Shoot, maybe it was the Archbishop of New Orleans getting permission from The Vatican to wear a Drew Brees No. 9 jersey over his robe while saying mass Sunday at St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans.
Face it, when The Vatican reportedly flies a Saints flag overhead on Feb. 6, 2010, for what we must guess is the first time in the history of the world, some things are just meant to be.
Saints 31, Colts 17, was just meant to be.
Yes, believe it, the Saints came marching in, and then out of Sun Life Stadium here Sunday night with the Lombardi Trophy, winning Super Bowl XLIV in not only dramatic but fittingly typical fashion for New Orleans and the entire Gulf Coast Region so wronged by Mother Nature 4 1/2 years ago.
They came back. What's new?
Look, after you've been through what the Saints have been through for most of their previous 42 years, the laughing stocks of the NFL and one of just a few teams never ever to play in a Super Bowl, what's a 10-point first-quarter deficit?
When you've been through what the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast Region have been through, don't let anyone ever tell you a 10-point deficit that early in a game is Super Bowl insurmountable.
Come on, and I know that no this was not the Dallas Cowboys winning their sixth Super Bowl title, but admit it, you smiled. Hey, I even saw some smiles in the auxiliary press box when Brees took a victory knee from guys who have learned not to smile for a living.
You might even have shed a tear over this feel-good sports story. There were grown people among the 74,059 in the stands, and as you could tell if you were watching on TV mostly those loyal and loveable Saints fans, with, for a change, big tears of joy in their eyes.
"We just knew we had an entire city, maybe the entire country behind us," Brees said afterward, the glistening in his eyes from tears of his own. "God is good. Feeling like it was all meant to be, like destiny."
Want to argue?
Those former Cowboys making up this Saints championship team, the ones whose drive for an undefeated season was stopped at 13 straight by the Cowboys, 24-17, that Saturday night in the Superdome, would beg to differ. Scott Shanle. Scot Fajita. Remi Ayodele. Adam Zimmer, the son of Mike Zimmer, whose mother passed away midway through the season. And, of course, Sean Payton, who had the nerve to take a New Orleans job in January of 2006 on the heels of Hurricane Katrina that hardly anyone would have been crazy enough to take.
You try living in a hotel room for like five months after taking the job, and then convince a staff knowing they will have to live in that same hotel with you for nearly as long if they take the job since the city still was such a mucky mess.
Maybe that is why Payton, whose coaching career turned around during his three years with the Cowboys, wasn't about to let go of the Lombardi Trophy. He marched right into the postgame interview tent with the trophy in hand, propping it up on the table in front of him as he answered question after question.
When he wanted to emphasize what he was saying, he would sort of wave the Lombardi around. He just couldn't seem to take his hands off the silver beauty as he talked, and he sure didn't let anyone else carry it away for him as he even thanked members of the New Orleans media for being along for the ride, and hugged one long-time Saints reporter who had been banned from asking questions at one point this season.
"There is a lot of grit and determination in those people," said Payton, and I wasn't sure if he was talking about a team that went from trailing the |
Mickey Spagnola - 
