MyTenSense.com

Mardi Gras is a week away, but New Orleans fans were already filling up Bourbon Street on Sunday in celebration of their Saints’ first Super Bowl victory.
And it’s only the beginning.

Saints coach Sean Payton and quarterback Drew Brees, the newly crowned Super Bowl MVP, expect New Orleans residents to take the next 30 days off from work to revel in the team’s historic Super Bowl championship.
New Orleans has a right to.
After hosting the most Super Bowls in NFL history for other teams, the hometown team finally got to play for its own Vince Lombardi Trophy and won with a 31-17 defeat of the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday in Super Bowl XLIV in Miami.

New Orleans took its first lead of the game after catching Indy off guard with an onside kick and recovering the ball to begin the second half. Brees then marched the Saints down the field threw a 16-yard screen to Pierre Thomas who weaved through defenders to find the end zone for New Orleans’ 13-10 lead. The Colts grabbed the lead back with Joseph Addai’s 4-yard run with six minutes left in the third quarter. But the Saints kept Indy out of the end zone for the rest of the game and scored an unanswered 18 points to secure the Super Bowl victory.
Saints coach Sean Payton said the team had been practicing the onside kick all week and Drew Brees said he couldn’t wait to see how well it worked in an actual game. Payton added that the team ran three different game plans for the first half, the third quarter and the fourth quarter. Obviously, his strategy worked.
Although the Saints were the underdogs, Brees said he felt pressure on his team to win because he felt like the country was pulling for New Orleans to win the Super Bowl.
And many were pulling for New Orleans, a city that was almost wiped off the map after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina put most of the city underwater in 2005.
Sports commentator Michael Irvin, a Pro Football Hall of Fame receiver on three Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl championship teams, told Brees that New Orleans is now America’s Team and he hopes the Saints’ Super Bowl victory helps the city to continue to rebuild.
So New Orleans is no longer the laughingstock of the NFL with fans wearing ‘Aints paper bags on their heads. The Saints are the reigning Super Bowl champions and have the nucleus of the team intact to add to their new legacy of winning.

By Teneshia LaFaye
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