New Orleans Saints Troy Evans (54) celebrates after winning the Super Bowl XLIV

Before the game started here is what I thought would happen…

-The game would cover the 57 points and possibly be the highest scoring Super Bowl ever

-Colts would win, but the won’t cover the five points

-Brees and Manning would have huge games

-It would be a close game with few punts

-Game would come down to final drive/big turnover

Recap: I wasn’t too hot on my predictions, seeing as that it was a lower scoring game than anticipated and the Saints won by double digits. O well, I wasn’t right, but what else is new

During the game here were my thoughts

Colts:

-The Colts 10-0 first quarter lead didn’t concern me about a blow out, due to Brees and Saints O

- Granted Manning threw the INT that secured the victory for the Saints, his numbers were amazing and he made pretty much every play they needed him too. He completed 69% of his passes for 333 yards on 45 attempts. Sure, Manning deserves some blame, but he is pretty far down on the list of reasons why the Colts lost

-This certainly adds more doubt to Manning’s legacy among the all-time QBs, but to say he is a choker may be true, but you can’t really cite this game for that argument.

-Special teams were not good. They had poor field position the whole game, averaging the ball on their own 12 yard line. A missed field goal with poor punt and kick off returns put Manning and the offense in tough situations to score TDs

-The onside kick is an easy place to blame the Colts, but the Saints won the 50-50 loose ball

-I thought they called a decent game, putting the Colts offense on Manning’s shoulders and Blitzing Brees, but they just didn’t execute on D

-Dallas Clark, Pierre Garcon, Joseph Addai and Austin Collie had solid all-around games, except for Garcon’s dropped catch when the Colts were up 10-3.

-Dwight Freeney was not 100%, but he made a couple plays to disrupt Brees, other than that he was not heard from

-Their final drive didn’t seem Colts-esque. They misused a timeout, they ran off a lot of time and struggled to punch the ball in the endzone once they got in the red zone. They still would have needed a Christmas Miracle to pull off the win, but with Peyton Manning, you never know what they could do.

Saints:

-They got off to a really slow start, not too surprising if you look at their performances on defense this season in the first quarter

-Sean Payton called an aggressive game (e.g. going for 4th down inside Colts 10 in 1st half and onside kick to start the 2nd half, etc.) and I commend him for that, and it paid off

-Drew Brees played an excellent game, he didn’t turn the ball over, his throws were on the money and he played better as the game went on

-Pierre Thomas broke what seemed like 100 tackles and he certainly helped out Brees in the running and receiving game

-Reggie Bush played a nice game. I thought if anyone would turn the ball over for the Saints it would be Bush, but he held onto the ball in the rushing, receiving and returning game.

-The receivers made Brees look good in this game, as they have all season

-Their O-line gave Brees a ton of time to pass the ball and their run blocking was solid

-Their D was picked apart by Manning and they didn’t do much to slow down the Colts running game. But the INT for TD by Porter is what the Saints have done all year, now the 10th INT for TD this season, and it seems to make up for all the yards they gave up

-Their special teams played great, and will most likely be the most overlooked factor in the win. People will remember the onside kick, but the three field goals by Hartley, good punts and returns added up.

Interesting Notes

-Saints earned this victory and join the Redskins in Super Bowl XXII as the only teams to ever overcome a 10 point deficit in SB history to win.

-Tracy Porter intercepted Manning for the TD, he also intercepted Favre’s final pass this season in the NFC Championship game

Overall

-There were the best two teams in the NFL this season and it billed for a great super bowl

-The game was slowed down a ton with both teams running a lot of high percentage plays and stressing ball control…I was disappointed as a fan because I wanted to see both teams bomb it on each other, but in a game of this magnitude, I understand that both teams didn’t want to make mistakes

-Drives were long and efficient, neither team finished drives great, but each team put themselves in positions to score.

-This game wasn’t too exciting in the sense that there weren’t many big plays. Yea, the interception was a big play, but that was late in the 4th Quarter.

-It seemed like this game moved pretty quickly

Conclusions

-This was a decent Super Bowl, but if you like QB’s and efficiency you would like this more than me. I’d rather see a Super Bowl with a bunch of big plays, trick plays and controversy. This game didn’t really have any of that.

-Peyton Manning’s legacy will continue to be questioned

-Drew Brees solidifies himself as an elite QB and is certainly in the argument for best current QB