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Five days after the New Orleans Saints beat the Indianapolis Colts in the Super Bowl, Mike Revell reflects on the Greatest Show on Earth, a wonderful season, and what it means for the year ahead New Orleans celebrated its first…

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Five days after the New Orleans Saints beat the Indianapolis Colts in the Super Bowl, Mike Revell reflects on the Greatest Show on Earth, a wonderful season, and what it means for the year ahead

New Orleans celebrated its first Super Bowl win with a mammoth victory parade last Tuesday, with brass bands and huge, rolling Mardi Gras floats, and tens of thousands of fans sang and danced and cheered in the streets.

The city is still smiling, even now. It will be smiling for a long time yet.

That’s not to say that the memory of that fateful day on August 29, 2005 has been forgotten. It never will be. But sport has a way of bringing people together, giving us something to care for and celebrate. With their philanthropy and their exciting play, the Saints have helped unite a broken city. And by overcoming the favoured Indianapolis Colts in the Super Bowl, they have restored hope to a place that, until now, has not had much cause for jubilation.

Super Bowl XLIV was billed as one for the ages, and although it was slow in parts and took a while to get going, it will be remembered as just that. Unless, of course, you play in royal blue, in which case it is the familiar story of close, but not close enough.

Before the game, Colts quarterback Peyton Manning was hailed by many as the player of the decade. Now, despite playing very well – even brilliantly, at times – questions are being asked after he threw an interception that sealed the Saints victory. Suddenly, he is a choker again. Suddenly, he’s not the best quarterback of all time, not even top three or four. How fickle, this sports business is.

But going unmentioned or unnoticed by many is that the interception, the reason for Manning’s supposed fall from grace, the very reason the Colts lost was not even his fault.

The pass was placed there, as it had been placed there throughout the season, as it will be time and time again, in confidence, in faith. It was a quick, precise, timing throw, and it is the bread and butter of the Colts offense.

With the game on the line, Manning went to the man he trusted more than anyone else to be there: Reggie Wayne. But Wayne, perhaps hampered by an injury that went relatively unnoticed under the shadow of Dwight Freeney’s ankle, was slow. He ambled up the field, and then stopped, allowing Tracy Porter to step in front of him for the pick, when Manning trusted and expected him to continue running.

A sudden blow, a huge swing of momentum. But Manning duly marched his team back up the field, and again looked for Wayne, this time with the game well and truly at stake, but he dropped what would have been a touchdown.

It was not Peyton Manning who threw away the Super Bowl: it was a combination of little mistakes by the playmakers around him. Drops, here and there, by players who don’t drop it. A missed interception, a muffed onside kick. And baffling, conservative play-calling at crucial times.

Air it out

If this year proved one thing, it’s that the NFL is now very much a passing league. There were 10 quarterbacks with 4,000 or more passing yards – the most ever for a single season.

In the playoffs, seven of the 12 teams had triggermen that were selected in the first round of the draft. The remaining five? Tony Romo, Tom Brady, Kurt Warner, Drew Brees and Brett Favre. All are Pro Bowlers, three are Hall of Famers, and two have the skill and potential to be enshrined in Canton, too.

Already, betting for next year’s Super Bowl champions has opened, and William Hill currently has the Colts as favourites at 7/1, followed by the Saints, Chargers, and Patriots. The top nine teams all have one thing in common: a franchise quarterback who has no problem airing it out down the field.

For the others, it seems, there is little hope for success in the post-season. Certainly in the Super Bowl itself. After all, would the Saints have won if they didn’t have the unerringly accurate Brees throwing the ball?

With the free agent pool thin, you will see some teams looking to trade for a reliable quarterback, while others will look to the draft, which is filled with successful college passers, hoping for another Mark Sanchez, another Ben Roethlisberger.

On the radar

This season was also one of the best I can remember for young players establishing themselves as explosive playmakers.

Before this year, Sidney Rice had a career high of 396 receiving yards. Then he trained with Larry Fitzgerald and Cris Carter in the off-season, and something , some belief or desire, changed. He was dominant this season, almost a mirror image of Fitzgerald, who routinely rewrites the receiver rulebook by making impossible catches in double coverage. Rice became Brett Favre’s top target, led the Vikings with 1,312 yards, and made it to his first Pro Bowl. The challenge for him will be to maintain that level of performance if Favre decides to call it quits.

And even now, looking back on a wonderful season, I’m still astonished by Michael Crabtree, who probably only dropped to the San Francisco 49ers in last year’s draft because of injury. He held out, missed training camp and pre-season as well as the first five games of the regular season, and still grabbed catch after remarkable catch, racking up over 600 yards.

Pierre Garcon and Austin Collie of the Colts, and the Steelers’ Mike Wallace all showed flashes of astonishing skill. But perhaps the most impressive young player, and certainly one of the most underrated, was Kansas City Chiefs running back Jamaal Charles. When Larry Johnson was cut, I don’t think the Chiefs themselves realised quite what a talent they had with Charles.

Previously, he was their kick return man, only used in the offense as a change of pace runner, or the occasional pass-catcher. He didn’t feature heavily until week 10, and yet still rushed for over 1,000 yards. Even more impressively, it wasn’t until week 14 that they really unleashed him: until then, he was never given the ball 20 times in a game. And in those last four games, he slashed through opposing defences with ease, running with the same fluidity, the same graceful, gliding manner as Chris Johnson. In those last four games, he rushed for 658 yards – seven yards per carry.

He is talented and explosive, and it will be Charles, not quarterback Matt Cassel, who they build their young team around.

Yet in a season filled with impressive individual performances, the Super Bowl proved that this game is a team game, first and foremost. And there are a number of young teams that are gelling, that are there, ready and willing and waiting to take that next step, to rise to the top and establish themselves as contenders.

The Houston Texans had an impressive year – the first in team history where they had more wins than losses. Exceptional, really, when you consider the strength of the AFC, and how tough their division is, with the Colts, the Jaguars, and the resurgent Titans all battling for supremacy. Matt Schaub and Andre Johnson paved the way for a passing attack even more potent than the Saints or the Colts. And by the end of the year, their defence was swarming and relentless.

The Titans managed to turn an 0-6 start into an 8-8 finish, and even had flickering playoff aspirations at one point. Chris Johnson was the offensive player of the year after breaking the 2,000 yard barrier, and with Vince Young under centre, the Titans were perhaps the most frightening team in the league for the second half of the season. Their record-breaking turnaround begs questions of what if … what if? But there are no such questions about next season, where they will probably make the AFC South the toughest division in the NFL.

And with Kurt Warner retiring, it seems certain that the San Francisco 49ers will seize the NFC West title from the Arizona Cardinals. Coach Mike Singletary has created a speedy and hard-hitting defence, built around Patrick Willis, the best linebacker in the league. Michael Crabtree, Vernon Davis and Frank Gore form a terrifying trio. And they boast two first round draft picks this off-season, which, if used well, could help to establish them as kings of more than just the NFC West over the next decade.

They’re also playing at Wembley in October, where the Saints played two years ago, and the Giants before that. Both sides have won the Super Bowl over the last three years. The 49ers, who will be the “home” team, will probably have the vast majority of the crowd on their side, and will be hoping for a little of that London Luck themselves.

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