Ball or Nuthin' » Saints

Saints Go All The Way With Super Bowl XLIV Victory

T Lamont — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 04:21:42 +0000

Two weeks ago, it was New Orleans cornerback Tracy Porter who intercepted Minnesota’s Brett Favre to seal the Saints place in Super Bowl 44.

Tonight, Porter was up to his old tricks again – this time his victim was 4-time NFL MVP Peyton Manning.

Porter’s late fourth quarter interception return for a touchdown provided the final margin in Super Bowl 44, as the New Orleans Saints defeated the Indianapolis Colts, 31-17.

In a game between two teams noted for their extraordinary offenses and top-notch quarterbacks, neither failed to live up to the hype. After a slow start to the game, both signal callers combined to complete 63 passes.

The Colts led the game 10-6 at the half, as neither team could sustain any momentum. So, coming out of halftime, the Saints went with an unconventional onside kick. Indianapolis just missed recovering the ball, but it went under the hands of a Colts player and the Saints were able to recover it. This controversial choice paid off for New Orleans. Drew Brees got on a roll and led his team on touchdown drive by completing a 16-yard screen pass to Pierre Thomas.

Drew Brees celebrates his new Super Bowl trophy with his son, Baylen.

Indianapolis responded with a 76-yard drive. The drive ended with Joseph Addai scoring on a 4-yard TD run which put the Colts ahead 17-13.

But that would be the last time that the Colts would score in the contest. First, the Saints Garrett Hartley answered with a 46-yard field goal. After keeping the Colts at bay, the Saints scored with 4:57 left in the game to put them ahead 24-17.

Colts quarterback Peyton Manning began to lead his troops on a drive to tie the game, moving the ball into Saints’ territory. A key 3rd and 5 pass was intercepted by Tracy Porter, providing the game with its biggest play.

Manning tried to quickly get another score for Indy, but the drive stalled when the Colts couldn’t push the ball in the end zone on a 4th and goal with slightly over a minute left in the contest.

Drew Brees, who was named the Super Bowl MVP, downed the ball to seal the New Orleans’ victory in their first trip to the big game. Here’s the quarterback’s take on their journey this season:

”We just believed in ourselves and we knew that we had an entire city and maybe an entire country behind us. What can I say? I tried to imagine what this moment would be like for a long time and it’s better than expected.”

Now, Brees, the Saints and the city of New Orleans no longer have to imagine.

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NFL Pro Bowl Week Rambling…

T Lamont — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 03:39:33 +0000

With a couple of big football events coming up over the next two weekends, the NFL season is rapidly approaching its climax.

Here are some football-related ramblings…

- Mark Sanchez got some very valuable experience this season. Playing with a Jets team that was in, then out, then snuck back into the playoff picture, he went through a couple of seasons worth of emotions in just one campaign.

- I did not expect the Vikings to totally dominate their playoff games the way that they did. The manhandled the Cowboys on both ends of the field, and the Saints were heavily outgained (from a yards perspective) by Minnesota. As much as it pains me to say it, Brett Favre should be in the Super Bowl.

Cleveland Browns coach Eric Mangini can only wish that he had a quarterback of Favre's caliber on his team.

- Speaking of Favre, he’s already starting his “I thinking playing next year - oh no I’m not – yes I am…” stuff. Can he please let us enjoy the last two games of the season before he begins holding the media hostage? Note to the Vikings: Draft a young quarterback that you can develop (a la Aaron Rodgers)…and do it fast. Your team is too good to be molded by Favre’s intentions…

- I don’t agree with this Pro Bowl before the Super Bowl thing, but I can understand why it was repositioned. Ratings…viewers – and that’s the bottom line. It’s not going to add any excitement to Super Bowl week. Super Bowl is its own entity, and if you aren’t interested in it prior to watching the Pro Bowl, you won’t be any more interested in it after watching the Pro Bowl.

- Besides, if I’m the coach of one of the teams in the Super Bowl, I’m not necessarily happy about my players participating in the Pro Bowl. After all, the important game is only a week away. And in theory that’s just wrong, because they’ve earned the right to be there and should be able to enjoy it as much as everyone else.

- The Saints and the Colts are definitely the teams that people want to see battling it out. They were the best in the regular season, and it’s always good when the teams that performed the best throughout the season square off against one another.

Vikings Hand NFC Championship to Saints

T Lamont — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 04:39:14 +0000

Brett Favre and Adrian Peterson are each, arguably, the best player at the respective positions in the NFL.

But on Sunday night, both of them committed critical turnovers that enabled the New Orleans Saints to defeat the Minnesota Vikings in overtime, 31-28, in the NFC Championship Game.

Minnesota running back Adrian Peterson rushed the football 25 times for 122 yards – and he had 3 touchdowns. However, AP fumbled the ball twice – somewhat disrupting the continuity of the Vikings offense.

Legendary QB Brett Favre completed 28 passes for 310 yards – but he also threw two interceptions. The costliest of those interceptions occurred with under 20 seconds left in the fourth quarter. With the game tied at 28, Minnesota had moved the ball inside the New Orleans’ 40 – with a 3rd down and 15 to go. Only needing the position the ball close enough to attempt a field goal, Minnesota designed a rollout pass to the right. Favre, as he’s done many times throughout his career, attempted to throw a pass across his body into the middle of the field. His attempt was intercepted by Tracy Porter and effectively sent the game into a sudden death overtime period.

The Saints won the coin toss in overtime, and systematically moved the football down the field. They received help from a couple of Vikings’ penalties – including a defensive holding and a defensive pass interference. New Orleans end up with a 4th down and 2 on the Minnesota 22 when they decided to send out kicker Garrett Hartley for a 40-yard field goal attempt. Hartley split the uprights perfectly to send the Saints to their first Super Bowl.

Tracy Porter made another opportunistic play that saved the game for the Saints.

The loss was especially bitter for the Vikings. From a statistical standpoint, they dominated the game. Minnesota outrushed New Orleans, 165 to 68. They outpassed them, 310 to 189. The Vikes won the first down battle, 31 to 15.

Unfortunately, Minnesota cmmitted five turnovers – three lost fumbles and two interceptions. Two of the fumbles and one of the interceptions occurred deep in New Orleans’ territory and, at the very least, one of them could have put the game winning points on the board for the Vikings.

Saints QB Drew Brees was efficient (17-31, 197 yards, 3 TD), but his team seemed to lack all of the offensive explosiveness that we are used to seeing from it. Instead, it was the opportunistic New Orleans defense which turned the game in its favor.

The Saints will face AFC Champions Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts in the 2010 Super Bowl to weeks from Sunday.

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Kardashians About to Score Again

T Lamont — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 03:58:26 +0000

Yet another Kardashian damsel is on the path to tying the knot. This time, the victim, uh, lucky fellow is well-known, super-athlete Reggie Bush of the New Orleans Saints.

I didn’t realize how difficult it is to find a picture of Reggie Bush playing football on the Internet.

Try doing an image search for “Reggie Bush” on Google, Yahoo or any other major search engine. What you’ll find is a conglomeration of pictures of the former USC standout hanging with his girl, socialite Kim Kardashian (not that I’m complaining, I’d much rather look at pictures of Kim than Reggie).

Stay focused Reggie, stay focused...

It looks as if we may even be able to soon add a wedding album to that conglomeration.

According to Kim (in a recent interview), the two of them made a deal. If Reggie Bush’s Saints go on to win the Super Bowl, he will propose to her.

And Bush doesn’t look to be throwing any games, either. In the Saints’ first playoff game on Saturday, Bush scored two touchdowns and had 217 multi-purpose offensive yards. If he keeps it up, we could be exposed to snippets of Kim “Bush” at New Orleans games in the fall of 2010.

So, I guess we can all look forward to Kourtney completing the hat trick and finding a nice baseball player to settle down with.

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Saints Shoot Down Cardinals

T Lamont — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 02:42:33 +0000

The New Orleans Saints provided the answer to everyone’s question – - yes, they are able to flick the switch.

After some lackluster games and some seemingly lost momentum, the Saints snapped back to the form that they displayed all season and ran the Arizona Cardinals out of the Superdome, 45-14.

All-purpose back Reggie Bush racked up 217 yards of total offense, including an 83-yard punt return and a 46-yard scamper – both for touchdowns.

The Cardinals got on the board first, scoring on a 70-yard Tim Hightower run to make the score 7-0. But then the Saints established their dominance early in the contest, and ran off three consecutive touchdowns. Running back Reggie Bush ended the first quarter scoring spree with a 46-yard touchdown gallop that made the score 21-7.

Arizona once again started in good fashion in the second quarter, as Beanie Wells capped a 9-play, 80-yard drive with a 4-yard run to pull the Cardinals within 7 points. However, New Orleans countered with 2 touchdown drives to push their lead up to 35-14 at the half.

Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner was not as effective as he was last weekend.

A discouraged Arizona couldn’t muster anything in the second half. After putting up 51 points against Green Bay last week, they knew that things would be tougher this week. The Saints and Cardinals were not far apart on total net yards – Arizona tallied 359, while New Orleans accumulated 418.

But two stats really told the story of the game where time of possession and third down efficiency. The home team had the ball for over 36 minutes, leaving the Cards in possession for less than 24 minutes. A big reason for this was the difference in the third down efficiencies of the teams. New Orleans converted on 54% (7 of 13) of their third downs. Arizona could only make good on 13% (1 of 8). Toss in a couple of turnovers (1 lost fmuble and 1 interception) and you had the recipe for disaster against a New Orleans team that was determined to prove that their regular season success was not a fluke.

New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees:

”There’s been a lot of firsts since Sean Payton has been here in the organization and we want to keep that going. We want to bring this franchise a championship.”

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