MIAMI — He looked up at the great Peyton Manning and stared into the eyes of greatness and refused to blink. New Orleans waited 43 years for a quarterback like this on a stage like this. Maybe Archie Manning, with this kind of team around him, could have been the Messiah, but fate works in strange ways. Drew Brees was the Messiah. For the city that calls him Breesus.
Once upon a time, they were the Aints, and their fans wore bags over their heads. That was a football tragedy. Katrina was a human tragedy. Brees — and the hometown Manning boys — have been instrumental in the recovery of a great city. MVP Brees, a 31-17 winner over Peyton Manning and the Colts, let them dance again last night on Bourbon Street, and all across New Orleans, all across America even, you could almost hear them cry:
Drew Dat!
He was a comeback story in his own right, all the way back from a catastrophic shoulder injury that would have sabotaged the career of a lesser man. The football gods steered him to New Orleans, and four years later, here came the Saints, marching into history, marching into the hearts of Who Dat Nation forever. The Comeback Kid of the Comeback City.
How About Dat! Brees and Sean Payton, Brees and New Orleans, a pair of matches made in heaven.
“We just believed in ourselves and we knew that we had an entire city, and maybe an entire country, behind us,” Brees said on the podium.
Asked if holding the Lombardi Trophy high over his head was everything he thought it would be, Brees smiled and said: “It wasn’t as heavy as I thought. But man, it’s shiny as I remember seeing it on TV.”
It didn’t get any better than this: “Probably holding my [one-year-old] son on the trophy stand, just taking in the moment, as the confetti’s coming down, and he’s trying to catch it with his little hand, and just thinking about life and how we got to this moment, and how often I dreamed of this moment.”
It was 10-6 Colts after a first half that saw Manning chained to the bench in the second quarter.
His eyes moist, Brees said: “Four years ago, whoever thought this would be happening? Eighty five percent of the city was under water, all its residents evacuated to places all over the country, most people not knowing if New Orleans would ever come back, or the organization or the team would ever come back. We just all looked at one another and said, ‘We’re gonna rebuild together. We’re gonna lean on each other.’ And that’s what we’ve done here for the last four years, and this is the culmination of all that belief and that faith.”
Then Sean Payton decided maybe his team could recover an onsides kick, so the ball would stay in Brees’ searing hot hand instead of Manning’s twitching right hand.
This wasn’t quite Bill Belichick going for it fourth-and-2 on his own 28. But this was the Super Bowl. And Payton didn’t care. The kick bounced off Hank Baskett, and Chris Reis recovered at the Saints 42 and soon Brees had a 16-yard TD on a screen to Pierre Thomas, and it was Saints 13, Colts 10. Manning answered, and it was 17-13 Colts.
Now it was the fourth quarter, 17-16, and Brees was coming at Manning with all his giant heart, all his courage, all his genius.
Manning’s quarter? Not this time. This time it was Brees’ Quarter. Brees’ Quarter and the French Quarter.
Brees (32-39, 288 yards, 2 TDs, 0 INT) put on a clinic, shredding the exhausted Colts secondary throw by throw, yard by yard, methodically, relentlessly, effortlessly. He hit six different receivers until second-and-goal at the 2. Jeremy Shockey got inside Jacob Lacey, Brees found him and it was 22-17. Then Brees hit Lance Moore, making an acrobatic catch over the plane of the goal line that was reversed after a Payton challenge, and it was 24-17.
Manning had 5:35 to try to tie it. Manning had capped a 96-yard drive, which tied the Super Bowl record, in the first half with a 19-yard TD pass to Pierre Garcon that had given the Colts a 10-0 lead.
Now he needed a 75-yard drive to force overtime.
He marched his team to the Saints 31, third-and-5, and looked for Reggie Wayne. Tracy Porter broke for the ball, intercepted and started running, running toward the Lombardi Trophy, running away from Katrina, 74 yards to paydirt, and Manning’s head sunk.
“We will walk together as Super Bowl champions, world champions, and giving a championship to New Orleans,” Brees said.
Good for Brees. Good for New Orleans. “Mardi Gras may never end!” Brees roared.
Drew Dat!