blogs: Billy Reed's Blog 

The New Orleans Saints didn't beat the Indianapolis Colts in the Super Bowl as much as bad karma did. You should not mess around with Mother Nature, or, apparently the gods of football. The Colts should never have blown off their opportunity to go unbeaten. By winning their first 14 regular-season games, the Colts put themselves in position to join the 1972 Miami Dolphins as the only NFL team to ever reign as unbeaten Super Bowl champions. It's a hollowed goal worth achieving. Yet instead of pursuing it, the Colts blew it off. They went in the tank in their last two regular-season games, gift-wrapping victories for the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills by putting their starters on the sidelines. The goal, said Colts' president Bill Polian and coach Jim Caldwell, was winning the Super Bowl, not going unbeaten. They could have achieved both, Instead, the got neither. By blowing the Super Bowl to the underdog Saints, the Colts got what they deserved in the eyes of those who believe that every team has an obligation – to itself, its fans, and the integrity of the game – to try to win every time it puts on the uniform. I have yet to see the team good enough to orchestrate its place in history. The Colts tried it and got on the wrong side of karma. You tempt the gods at your own risk. When the Colts did their tank jobs against the Jets and Bills, you can bet that George Halas, Paul Brown and Vince Lombardi were frowning up in Hoghide Heaven. Other than money, why play at all if you are not going to play for your place in history? Exactly 44 teams now have won the Super Bowl, but only one has been crowned as an unbeaten Super Bowl champion. The '72 Dolphins set the bar high and so far nobody has been able to vault it. Those who have come closest – the New England Patriots of a couple of years ago, for example – have failed not from lack of effort, but because they weren't quite good enough. We'll never know if the Colts were good enough because Polian and Caldwell, playing God, took their fate into their own hands. Of course, there's also this: Maybe the Saints are just better. Maybe the Saints would have won even if the Colts had come into the Super Bowl unbeaten. The Saints Sean Payton out-coached Caldwell, catching the Colts unprepared with some new offensive and defensive wrinkles. His decision to open the second half with an onside kick was one of the guttiest in Super Bowl history. And in the end, after an incredible duel of surpassing excellence, it was the Colts' MVP quarterback, Peyton Manning, who cracked instead of his New Orleans counterpart, Purdue product Drew Brees. With the Colts down by only seven and driving, Manning threw an interception that Saints cornerback Tracy Porter, a native of Louisiana and a second-round draft pick from Indiana, grabbed and returned 74 yards to blow the game open. It was not a hard play. Porter simply moved around and in front of Manning's intended receiver, Reggie Wayne, and took Manning's pass right in the numbers. Yards from reaching the end zone, Porter began pointing at Saints fans in the stands, touching off a wild celebration both in Sun Life Stadium and on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. It was a marvelous spiritual victory for a city still coming back from the ravages of Hurricane Katrina, the 2006 natural disaster that brought the Gulf Coast region to its knees. The Saints' home, the New Orleans Superdome, was seriously damaged, but still served as a shelter for refugees. As fate would have it, Peyton Manning also is a native of New Orleans. He was born there during the dark early years of the Saints franchise, when his father, Archie, was taking weekly beatings as the Saints' QB. The team was so bad that they became known as the Aints and fans took to wearing paper sacks over their heads. The victory comes in the midst of Mardi Gras and is guaranteed to do what was previously thought to be impossible, which is send the festival to new levels of drunkenness and debauchery. But that's OK. It's great to see New Orleans alive and well and strutting again. Heck, I'll bet that if you look carefully during the Mardi Gras parade, you might just see the gods of football riding a float through the French Quarter. They still rule the game, you see, and woe be to the team that defies them.

ADD A COMMENT

	SciFiNut   mon feb 08 2010 at 1:51 pm         ·  >>The Colts should never have blown off their opportunity to go unbeaten. Agree 110%.
	The KNOCKOUT!!!   mon feb 08 2010 at 2:14 pm         ·  It wasnt karma, peytons from new orleons and it was their time 2 shine, with katrina 2010 was their year n the coach sticked with the team for over 40 yrs and now he can know they made their victory. just glad a team won who hasnt
	Princess Lea   mon feb 08 2010 at 2:27 pm         ·  Personally I don't think you can expect a team to win EVERY TIME, yes, it would have been nice for them to win the S.B. and even with the outcome, I'm still proud of the Colts. Go Peyton, Go Colts!
	cbrownwildcatfan   mon feb 08 2010 at 9:54 pm         ·  Has anyone thought about pointshaving?????? Watch the game again, and it is apparent that there was something going on.