The fact is Sean Payton and the New Orleans Saints took Soldier Field armed with a faulty game plan.
In snowy weather suited for establishing smash-mouth running, for the powerful legs and secure hands of running back Deuce McAllister, the Saints opted to primarily pass against a Chicago Bears defense susceptible to the run.
Instead of riding the work steed that broke the Philadelphia Eagles’ back the week before, they risked the ball in the air and dropped Drew Brees back for passes all afternoon. The results were impossible to overcome when facing an opponent who secured the football and played penalty-free – a fumble on a sack, a fumble lost after a catch and run in the open field (Marques Colston), an interception on a ball underthrown against driving snow flurries.
Despite two chances to adjust to the conditions, the Saints didn’t – after three goal-line stops early in the game, after a touchdown from Brees to Colston in the opening half and the longest touchdown ever in an NFC championship game by Reggie Bush to inch back to 16-14, McAllister recorded just six touches.
But the fact also is those misjudgments, a missed Billy Cundiff field goal and a mental lapse safety happened atop heights New Orleans had never scaled.
It wasn’t a bad game plan that resulted in a 39-14 blowout at midseason, where playoff contention has historically been a mathematic impossibility for the city’s beloved ball club.
It was a bad but gutsy game plan executed at the behest of Payton’s iron resolve, one his guts-of-steel playmakers carried out as they made a bid to lift this city and its never-say-die, never-say-never fans to the promised land – a Super Bowl.
After the most storied season that’s unfolded in the Big Easy’s city limits. After Saints fans witnessed the reopening of the Superdome, once the theater of an American tragedy. After they saw Bush motorcycle a punt back not only for his first NFL touchdown, but also for the winning score against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. After beating the Eagles on a last-second field goal. After demolishing media-darlings Tony Romo, Terrell Owens and the Dallas Cowboys 42-14 in the fortress that is Texas Stadium. After downing the Eagles again to win the club’s first-ever NFC Divisional Playoff game.
And all that, just one year after the ghost of relocation to Los Angeles or San Antonio cast a gloomy shadow over the dreams of mourning, uncertain Saints fans doing their damndest to resuscitate what many around the world deemed a “dying city” in the recesses of its history.
The fact is, for nine Sundays, one Monday night and one Saturday night, New Orleans and its residents were kings and queens atop the world, so close to the sky they could kiss it.
When one year ago the only thing haunting our mind was the extinction of all we loved, men in black jerseys and gold helmets had us dreaming world championship.
And that’s rhyme, reason, strength and resolve to overcome improbable odds.
That’s pride once again.
