You couldn’t have
too
much of a problem accepting Drew Brees as the
Super Bowl MVP. After a bit of a rough start, he completed just about
everything that left his hand. He threw the ball hard, he threw it
soft, the ball always rotating in a perfect spiral. He threw from the
pocket, he threw on the run, he sat in the pocket, he slid back and
forth and one time he even shook a defender off him. And he continued
to be the team’s unquestioned leader on the field.
But
a football team is more than just one player. Nobody seemed to
understand that before the Super Bowl and nobody will want to hear that
now. America loves heroes. No…let me amend that…mankind loves heroes.
That’s why many countries still hang on to their royal houses, I guess.
Peyton Manning had been the anointed one before the game. We
heard that he was the best quarterback ever to play the game. He was
the MVP for the regular season. He was a coach on the field, he worked
harder than anyone and he brought those young Colts wide receivers into
synch with him in a sophisticated offensive scheme.
Those same
groveling sycophants are now making Manning the goat. Now he has fallen
into the abyss. He threw the key interception. He called an
inappropriate timeout. He couldn’t overcome a good football team
playing great all by himself. He couldn’t overcome a conservative game
plan for a team seemingly playing not to lose. He couldn’t overcome a
team convinced they were figureheads for the resurrection of an entire
once-drowned city.
And now Drew Brees is the god (and the King
of Bacchus too). As good as he was though, the Saints wouldn’t have won
without those other guys, the offensive line that gave him time to
throw, the running backs who ran hard, broke tackles and provided an
outlet for him when all those marvelous receivers had Colts hanging off
their backs, most notably Marques Colston and Devery Henderson but also
Lance Moore who only proved a contortionist could play wide receiver in
the NFL.
And there was that marvelous Saints defense. Not just
cornerback Tracy Porter or linebacker Jonathan Vilma or those smart and
active players on their defensive front, the ones who made Peyton
Manning throw in a hurry, the ones who even seemed to have the great
one confused at times.
Even the special teamers were terrific,
not just Garrett Hartley who kicked 3 long field goals to keep them in
the game or even Thomas Morstead, the combo placekicker and punter who
placed that all-important onsides kick to set up the black and gold in
their dominating second half. Courtney Robey and the rest of those
bombers provided solid kick coverage all day long. And a no-name like
Chris Reis recovered that onsides kick.
An NFL roster has, I
believe, 53 active players. At any one time, there are 22 players on
the field. There are also the head coaches, the coordinators, offensive
and defensive, and assistants for every conceivable function. In
professional football more than any other sport, the head coaches and
coordinators are sometimes more important than any single individual on
the field. They call the plays. They decide who plays. The entire plan
of the game is theirs.
And so it was yesterday. Any number of
Saints players could have been named MVP. After watching the game again
and then again, I discovered that virtually every Saints player played
well. The only exception may have been Usama Young, a Saints defensive
back who was immediately victimized by Manning and Garcon after taking
over for an injured Jabari Greer, hardly an indictable offense.
While
all of this may sound like so much claptrap to the more cynical,
football is truly a team sport. No one man can win a game all by
himself, not Peyton Manning, not Drew Brees, not Tom Brady, and not the
immortals of yesteryear, Montana or Aikman or Bradshaw or Unitas. And
the converse is true as well, although this writer may want to make
exceptions for Brett Favre, Brad Childress and Herman Edwards.
Boldness
won the game. Timidity lost it. There was that bold Saints onsides
kick, but there was also a failed attempt to score on fourth and goal
rather than take the easy three, a move that could have hurt much more
if the timid Colts didn’t go 3 and out, allowing the Saints to get
their three after all. The Colts decision to kick a field goal from 51
yards out, although seemingly a bold move, was actually motivated more
by their desperation to put points on the board against a team they
realized they couldn’t stop.
The Saints played to win the game.
They pulled out all the stops. The Colts played not to lose. If one man
can be legitimately canonized, it is Sean Payton, the Saints head coach
who set the tone. If any one man must be the goat, it would have to be
Colts first-year head coach Jim Caldwell, who talked only about a lack
of execution after the game.
I couldn’t be more thrilled. I had
rooted for the Saints all year long. I had predicted Saturday that
they’d win this game, citing their ability to run and pass the ball,
citing the injury to Dwight Freeney, and figuring that they’d get the
turnovers they’d need to win the game, even against the great Peyton
Manning.
Of course, it didn’t work out exactly as I had
thought. I had thought Bush and Pierre Thomas would run the Colts into
the ground. But they only did so after first catching a pass. While I
thought Freeney couldn’t play well, he actually did make one play.
While I thought the Saints would force fumbles, they only recovered an
onsides kick and made an interception for a touchdown.
And I thought that a good team would beat even the great Peyton
Manning.
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