QBREES9

After the Parade, Saints Face Many Decisions


By JUDY BATTISTA

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Sean Payton wore Mardi Gras beads and the look of a man who had channeled the Bourbon Street party after the New Orleans Saints completed their stunning resurrection for themselves and their city at the Super Bowl.

Bleary-eyed and euphoric, like the thousands who flooded New Orleans’s streets Sunday night in celebration, Payton was already so at ease with being a Super Bowl champion Monday morning that he began his news conference by thanking the N.F.L. for keeping the buses running on time and ended it by throwing the Lombardi Trophy over his shoulder as if it were a windbreaker.

“This thing laid in my bed next to me last night,” Payton said. “I rolled over; I probably drooled on it. Man, there’s nothing like it.”

There will be plenty of time for major off-season decisions, and the Saints have loads of them. They have 29 free agents, 11 of them unrestricted, which means that all those fans drinking Hurricanes this week should enjoy their feel-good team now, because it could look drastically different when the N.F.L. hosts its opening party in New Orleans in September.

Will the Saints try to re-sign the veteran safety Darren Sharper and linebacker Scott Fujita, both unrestricted free agents? Will they take an expected uncapped season as an opportunity to dump Reggie Bush, whose modest statistics do not match his escalating salary-cap figure?

New Orleans is not the only team with questions. The Colts, who lost by 31-17 and cast doubt on whether they qualify as a dynasty with a lone Super Bowl championship, have to decide linebacker Gary Brackett’s future and negotiate a new contract for Peyton Manning.

But the Saints may face the busiest off-season in the league, and they are already contemplating what happens when the parades end and the work begins again.

“When you get back into the swing of things, it’s all about that 2010 season,” said quarterback Drew Brees, the Super Bowl’s most valuable player.

“There’s 32 teams that feel like it’s going to be their year. We know what it’s like to build something from the ground up. What’s going to be fun is using the term repeat all next year.”

But with Brees predicting that nobody was going to work in New Orleans this week — “or for the next month,” he added, noting that Mardi Gras is next Tuesday — the Saints were in the mood for a few more victory laps. Their season had started 13-0, but when they could not beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers late in the season, they seemed poised to reassume their old role as the Aints.

Not this time. In the playoffs, the defense beat three likely Hall of Fame quarterbacks in Kurt Warner, Brett Favre and Manning, and Brees assumed a spot among the elite quarterbacks. The joy ride to the Super Bowl had been embraced by those who rooted as much for good luck to grace Saints fans as Saints players. The day after was the first time the Saints could join the indulgence unfettered of any responsibilities.

“There is something about what we do that maybe allows you 24 to 48 hours before you start eyeing up the next challenge,” Payton said. “Somewhere last night, we talked about Dallas, Tex., and one of the greatest stadiums our league knows, and there’s probably never enough in regards to the challenge. When you get a quarterback like Drew Brees in the prime of his career, it’s not enough. Last night was great, and yet still there is something that burns in you to separate yourself more.”

Payton might have separated himself from other coaches for one of the riskiest calls in Super Bowl history. The Saints practiced the onside kick they call Ambush for two weeks, and in their meetings before the game, Payton told his special-teams units that they were going to try it in the game; it was just a matter of when. During the long Super Bowl halftime, Payton made the decision to go for it. He was so confident in its success that he scripted the first eight plays of the drive that followed, too.

A thin line separate genius and stupidity in the N.F.L. — New England Coach Bill Belichick was scorched when he made a fourth-down gamble out of respect for Manning — but Payton walked the line perfectly. Sure enough, the onside kick worked, and the Saints squeezed out a critical extra possession and a surge of momentum.

“It was an unbelievably gutsy call,” Brees said. “We all believed, hey, this is going to work. At that point you felt like, O.K., the game has come to us.”

And now the celebration has come to them, too. Brees said he spent Sunday night scrolling through the 500 e-mail and text messages he received from friends, families and coaches. Brees spoke movingly Monday, as he has so often in the past, about how representing a rebuilding city is not a burden but a source of strength. On Tuesday, New Orleans will throw a parade for the Saints, and it is hard to imagine that even Mardi Gras will unleash the outpouring that will engulf the team.

Very early Monday morning, though, the Saints had a more private celebration. With his hands gripping the silver Lombardi Trophy again — smudged with the fingerprints of dozens of players — Payton told the story of Joe Lombardi, the Saints’ quarterbacks coach. He is the grandson of Vince Lombardi, and with his father, Vince Jr., they posed for pictures with the trophy named for Joe’s grandfather.

“I just thought to myself, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Payton said. “If you believe in heaven and you believe Vince Lombardi is looking down on his grandson, it doesn’t get any better.”

In heaven and at the Super Bowl, the angels and the Saints were smiling.

www.sportsshooter.com/johnjcoleman

" Anyone can take a picture Only a Photographer can take a photograph "

lildood

wow great very great read you have fo us. ~ can the city which yhas won a super bowl finally. ummmmmm move foward. after the game i witness 3 who datter in action. i cant even type much becuase im in so much pain, but i can say this. Im now a super bowl and national champion in the saints year of redemion.