Monday Morning Cornerback: Week 23February 10, 2010
Well, the last weekend of football was a good one. Of course, it was Super Bowl week. Nothing else was going on as far as me and football fans were concerned. That was evident of the game being the most viewed television program in US History garnering 106 million viewers beating the 27 year record held by the hit show M*A*S*H when their series finale had 105.7 million viewers.
The game was a good one. The past three years’ Super Bowls have been good games actually. Normally Super Bowl week has some kind of off the field controversy, but this one didn’t. The only controversy was whether or not whether or not Dwight Freeney’s bum ankle was going to allow him to play at an elite level. The media tried to make a big deal out of Reggie Bush being out past 3am on Wednesday but it didn’t get much attention.
Onto the game, which was a good one like I stated earlier. I said it two weeks ago that if the Vikings didn’t win, that a perfect ending to the NFL season would be for the Saints to win the game and Drew Brees to win the MVP over regular season MVP, Peyton Manning, because I thought he should have been in the conversation last year and actually won it this year.
Well what do you know? That exact freaking thing happened. Brees balled out as did Peyton Manning, but the Saints came up with 31 points and the Colts came up with 17. Can you believe that, the 25th ranked defense in the league held Peyton Manning to 17 points. Saints defensive coordinator, Greg Williams, dialed up the blitzes all game long from every angle possible. They didn’t show Peyton Manning all their cards in the first half either, they kept some for the second half that Peyton was not ready for. Manning was not necessarily sacked or hit repeatedly, but his pocket clocked was rushed many times throughout the game. The Colts were just out of sink, dropped passes by Garcon, the botched timeout call at the end, and Reggie Wayne dropping the pass at the end. They looked unraveled and scrambled at the end.
The Saints looked like the inexperienced team at the beginning. Brees overthrew a few passes, Marques Colston dropped a pass that he’d catch 100 times out of 100. They got down early 10-6 in the second quarter and left at least 3 points on the board. To be honest, I thought it wasn’t looking too good for the Saints. You can normally tell how a game is going to go after the first half and the Colts looked as if they could score at will and it looked like the Saints needed to make good on every opportunity given to them.
The onside kick is what changed the momentum of the game. After that the Saints’ mojo was in full effect. The dogpile after that fumble was epic. It lasted forever. You could make a 2 hour documentary about what went on at the bottom of that pile, it’d be very interesting. The Saints had all the momentum and scored rather easily. I still thought they were in trouble because the Colts went right back down the field and scored right after that. And of course, the Saints went right down the field and kicked a field goal to bring the score to 16 to 17 Colts with the lead.
At this point, I figured okay here comes the shootout of the fourth quarter. But no, the Colts would never score again. They were well on their way to scoring again, but Tracey Porter halted that. The Saints went up 24 to 17 after a 1 yard Jeremy Shockey touchdown and a great two point conversion by Lance Moore. It was great to see Shockey be able to be involved in this Super Bowl win as opposed to the last time when he played for the Giants.
Then the game went downhill for the Colts. You all know, Manning tossed a pick right to Tracey Porter who took it back 70 yards for a touchdown to go up 31-17. Reggie Wayne ran a shallow curl route that Porter jumped perfectly. I mean, the kid looked like Asante Samuel out there. Everyone is now saying that Wayne was not 100% which is probably true, because he couldn’t break out of the curl route fast enough. Porter made the play of his life against the greatest quarterback of this era.
The Colts could do nothing else. They tried to drive the ball down the field and yes, with Peyton Manning they were able to make a good push, but his receivers that had been so reliable all year were dropping balls, running bad routes, etc. It was a mess. Once the last incomplete pass feel to the ground complete chaos happened and the New Orleans Saints were Super Bowl champions. It can never be taken away from them. Aside from Katrina, the Saints have been around for 44 years, and are finally winning their first Super Bowl. Congratulations!
That’s all I got,
Ricky Writer
