Saints were perfect championship 'gumbo'

Sometimes championships are won by simply steam-rolling the competition and showing they are simply the best team by miles and miles. The Saints weren't one of those teams. Like south Louisiana gumbo they needed a little bit of everything to win the Lombardi trophy.
 
Start with a great quarterback in an NFL where if you don't have one your team isn't winning anything. There has never been a Super Bowl where two quarterbacks played so well and the yesterday the Saints had the better one.
 
Drew Brees was beyond remarkable. After a slow start he completed 29 of his last 32 passes and one of those incompletions was to stop the clock at the end of the first half.
 
The Saints championship gumbo also included a coach who pushed every right button in 2009 and on Super Sunday had maybe the best Super Bowl anybody wearing a headset has ever had.
 
In sports just like life fortune favors the bold. Sean Payton from the day he became the Saints coach has been about risk. From the signing of Drew Brees to a double reverse late in a fourth quarter, Payton hasn't waited for victory to come. He's led the Saints in a hyper aggressive manner almost saying, "We aren't waiting or being patient. If right now is our time we won't have any regrets later about something we didn't do."
 
To begin the second half by putting the Saints Super Bowl chances on the line with the surprise onside kick was part guts and part crazy. For the victory parade Tuesday they might need a separate float for the size of Sean Payton's....courage.
 
The Saints championship Gumbo is hardly complete though.
 
Any good gumbo recipe needs an ingredient that surprises everyone and makes it something special. For the 2009 Saints the ingredient was faith in a kicker when the easy and safe call was to go another way.

The Saints kept Garrett Hartley through his four-game suspension and didn't waver after he missed the game winner against Tampa Bay.
 
He kicked the Saints to the Super Bowl but history should read he was even better on Super Sunday. He kicked field goals of 44 and 46 yards to keep the Saints in the game in the first half. He also nailed a 47 yarder in the third quarter.  Hartley misses any one of those three kicks and the whole game changes.
 
Peyton Manning would have been given great field position and if Hartley misses one of those kicks in the first half the Colts would have been in position to bury the Saints.
 
As great as John Carney's career has been he doesn't make those kicks. The faith in Hartley was as big as anything Sunday.
 
What else does our gumbo need?
 
Call it luck or destiny but whatever you call it the Saints had it in 2009.
 
In Week 10 Tracy Porter injured his knee. He was carted off the field and had the look of a guy whose season was over. ESPN even reported after the game he had a torn knee ligament and was done until 2010.
 
Except he wasn't. Porter's knee was only sprained Sean Payton said so next day and he would be back in time for the playoffs.
 
All Porter did was save the Saints against the Vikings with the late interception of Favre and seal a Super Bowl with a interception return for touchdown against Peyton Manning.
 
Why wasn't his knee injury season ending? Some might say God is a Who Dat but I'll just say it as meant to be.
 
When teams win titles they need some luck sprinkled in.
 
Finally for a championship gumbo to be perfect it's got to all come together.
 
The Saints and the city are one in the same. The Saints have always been as much a part of New Orleans as the French Quarter, Bourbon Street or beignets.
 
The rest of America thinks New Orleans somehow just started this love affair with the Saints after Katrina but we know differently.
 
New Orleans embraced the Saints as ours from the moment they arrived.
 
The 2009 team embraced the city right back and that's why this season has meant so much.
 
From Drew Brees to Will Smith, players are as much invested in making New Orleans whole again as residents are.
 
With the Gumbo ready New Orleans enjoyed ever last drop once the Lombardi trophy was secure.
 
So what are Saints fans to do now we've finally got what we always wanted?
 
Besides party until Ash Wednesday?
 
All the memories of the wins this year might fade but I'll remember the vibe of the city on Super Sunday forever. I went to the Krewe of Barkus before the game and soaked in the joy of the city. From smiles to dogs dressed up like Drew Brees New Orleans was in nirvana.
 
For me what the Saints Super Bowl win will mean is whatever happens in life from now on I'll know anything is possible. Anything.
 
If anyone doesn't believe me I'll just smile and tell them,"If the Saints can win the Super Bowl nothing is impossible. Nothing."

Ralph Malbrough is a Saints fan living in Houston. Email him at ralphmalbrough@hotmail.com, find him on facebook, or listen to his Saints podcast at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/forecastradio