A transcript of some of Drew Brees' first remarks at his press conference after the game:
"It’s a pretty surreal moment and words can’t describe the feeling, because you think back to four years ago, coming here post-Katrina, Sean Payton’s first year. I’ll remember forever the first phone call with him telling me they wanted me to be their quarterback and I could never have imagined that things would work out the way they have. We had a goal and a dream back then to have this opportunity to go play for a Super Bowl championship – it feels great.
"It’s unbelievable, I think you can draw so many parallels between our team and our city. In reality, we’ve had to lean on each other in order to survive and to get where we are right now. The city is on its way to recovery and in a lot of ways is better than ever. As a team we’ve used the strength and resiliency of our fans to go out and play every Sunday and play with the confidence to know that we can set out to achieve everything we’ve wanted to achieve.
"It’s been one step at a time and it hasn’t always been easy and we’ve had to fight through a lot of adversity, just like this city has.
When I look at what this year has meant thus far to this community, not only the regular season, but being able to host two playoff games, what it did for this economy and what it did for the spirit of this city and these people – it was special.
It’s probably going to be nuts around here for a little bit, but that’s to be expected. It was as loud as I’ve ever heard it in the dome."
