The Road to SuperBowl XLIV: The Official 2010 NFL Playoffs Thread

Toggle sidebar
ONUOsFan said:
But probably not as enjoyable as it was for me to watch the Giants beat the Pats a couple of years ago. ;)
Click to expand...

Touche'

Hey what is the mood like in Indiana?

Who is getting the blame there? Payton for the pic, Caldwell for kicking that 51 yard FG, Hank Baskett or Tony Dungy for giving the Saints extra motivation?

I feel for you, I know how tough it was in 2007. I still haven't forgiven Assante Samuel, and still would like to see the execution of John Tommasse.
 
And most of you doubted the Saints! ;)

What a great game! The second half was awesome! I'm still pinching myself this morning...

It was nice to see Porter pick off another one in the 4th quarter and seal the game.

After the game was over we went outside. My neighborhood is normally a very quiet one. All you could hear from all directions was yelling, screaming, and fireworks. The shots they were showing on the news of Bourbon St was insane! Wish I could have been there. That party is not going to stop until after Mardi Gras.
 
Random thoughts from a Colts fan

- First, the Saints outplayed and (probably more importantly) out coached the Colts and deserved to win the game. They acted like they wanted it more. Congratulations to them and to the city of New Orleans. If they hadn't beaten the Colts I'd be really happy for them (I might be still, eventually).

- I thought the Colts clearly looked like the better team early on and would have won the game, but it turned on two things:

1. Colts get a goal line stand with two minutes left in the first half, and then sit on the ball??!!!?? Do you have Peyton effing Manning or not? Since when do the Colts not try to score at the end of the first half - I don't care if they're on their own one inch line - you trust Peyton to make the right decisions and at least get you into field goal range.

2. The onside kick. That was the moment where I really felt like the Saints were playing to win and the Colts weren't. Or, maybe the better way to say it is that the Saints were completely sold out to winning - they were going to do anything and everything they could. The Colts just seemed to treat it like another game. Normally, that's why the Colts win, but it's bitten them a lot in the playoffs over the years.

- Joseph Addai and Pierre Garcon really looked like they wanted that game, but everyone else just seemed like they were there... I think all of this talk leading up of "it's no big deal, just another week, we've been here before" went a little too far.

- I really felt, going into that game, that Manning was on his way to cementing his legacy as one of the greatest to ever play the game (and not just in the regular season), and he still had a chance to do that in that penultimate drive, but instead he had a classic Peyton "shrinkage" moment when it mattered most. Very depressing.... He still played pretty well overall, but that throw was terrible (although Wayne certainly could have done more to help his QB out - my wife said he seemed to be half-a**ing it all night, and I'm not sure I can disagree with her).

- I thought the Colts defense played really well. It should have been 10-3 (or 13-3 or 17-3) at halftime, and they never should have been on the field for that first possession of the second half - Freeney didn't even have his socks on, for goodness' sake. Take away those 10 points and the 7 from the interception, and they only gave up 14 points to the best offense in football - not too shabby. Even if you say they should have stepped up on that first possession after the onside kick (which they should have), it was still only 21, which should be more than good enough for the Colts to win. Once again, in the big game, the defense plays well enough but the offense fails to come through.

- The one thing I have to complain about is this sequence: Colts are driving, down 7, Saints are helpless to stop them. "Injured Saint on the field, it's Hargrove." Shot of Hargrove writhing in pain on the ground. Next play, Saints have had time to set up the perfect blitz and Peyton makes a terrible throw, resulting in a pick six. Nantz comments on how that injury gave the Saints time to regroup and reset their defense. Couple of plays later, Hargrove looks just fine as he plows into Joseph Addai for a late hit. How many times do we have to see this before the league does something about it????? It happens in every freaking Colts game!!! Thank you, Willie McGinest, for starting that trend...
 
Hart5150 said:
Touche'

Hey what is the mood like in Indiana?

Who is getting the blame there? Payton for the pic, Caldwell for kicking that 51 yard FG, Hank Baskett or Tony Dungy for giving the Saints extra motivation?

I feel for you, I know how tough it was in 2007. I still haven't forgiven Assante Samuel, and still would like to see the execution of John Tommasse.
Click to expand...

There aren't any local radio shows on in the morning, so I haven't had a chance to "get the pulse" that way... I think if you read the post I just made, most of those things have been echoed by those I've talked to here at work this morning.

Overall, it's more a feeling of disappointment than anything else. It's hard to feel bad that the Saints won, and most people feel they deserved it, but for me it's just kind of a flat feeling...

Now, that may change to something more "passionate" when the hotheads get going on the radio shows later on, but people here aren't generally quite as "life and death" with their sports teams as folks in your neck of the woods...

I don't think you can underestimate the way our opponent is coloring our reactions, either, though - if we had lost to the old crapslinger and the Vikings, or god forbid to the Patriots (not that that's possible, obviously), I think the feeling would be much different this morning.
 
hi6Lf.jpg
 
ONUOsFan said:
- I really felt, going into that game, that Manning was on his way to cementing his legacy as one of the greatest to ever play the game (and not just in the regular season), and he still had a chance to do that in that penultimate drive, but instead he had a classic Peyton "shrinkage" moment when it mattered most. Very depressing.... He still played pretty well overall, but that throw was terrible (although Wayne certainly could have done more to help his QB out - my wife said he seemed to be half-a**ing it all night, and I'm not sure I can disagree with her).
Click to expand...
Wasn't Wayne recovering from a knee injury that caused him to leave practice early just a few days ago??

ONUOsFan said:
- The one thing I have to complain about is this sequence: Colts are driving, down 7, Saints are helpless to stop them. "Injured Saint on the field, it's Hargrove." Shot of Hargrove writhing in pain on the ground. Next play, Saints have had time to set up the perfect blitz and Peyton makes a terrible throw, resulting in a pick six. Nantz comments on how that injury gave the Saints time to regroup and reset their defense. Couple of plays later, Hargrove looks just fine as he plows into Joseph Addai for a late hit. How many times do we have to see this before the league does something about it????? It happens in every freaking Colts game!!! Thank you, Willie McGinest, for starting that trend...
Click to expand...
I'm not sure what you could do rules-wise in this scenario where the injured player is on the team that's leading. The injured player has to come out for a play and the clock is stopped, which helps the team that's trailing. If the injury occurs to the team trailing in the last two minutes of a half, there is a clock runoff of 10 seconds if all of their timeouts have been used.
 
cosmo_kramer said:
Wasn't Wayne recovering from a knee injury that caused him to leave practice early just a few days ago??
Click to expand...

True...

cosmo_kramer said:
I'm not sure what you could do rules-wise in this scenario where the injured player is on the team that's leading. The injured player has to come out for a play and the clock is stopped, which helps the team that's trailing. If the injury occurs to the team trailing in the last two minutes of a half, there is a clock runoff of 10 seconds if all of their timeouts have been used.
Click to expand...

I know, I'm not sure what the answer is either, but there has to be something. It's become standard technique against the Colts now - they find something they can exploit and run the no huddle to keep you in that setup, so you fake an injury to slow them down and get a chance to sub. The "injured" player in question always comes back to make a play within a minute or two a la Willie McGinest and the goal line stand against Edgerrin James several years back.
 
I thought it was a great game.....I was there working as a contractor for my buddy who works freelance for Fox Sports Chicago. The noise from the Manning pic-6 was incredible.

My take was that 2 two biggest plays were not so much a coaching issues, but one that took the Colts completely by surprise(the on-side kick) and one where you clearly see Manning starring down his reciever....something he NEVER does. ALSO, after that sack in the 1st quarter by Freeney....the Colts never got close enough to sack him again...he went almost untouched....showing they made chnages/adjustments to the COlts defense. I had heard a great comment by Phil Simms that stated the Saints had pratices hard...hard than most teams in the Super Bowl...for this game. Like mid-seaon, hard hitting practices. You celarly saw how aggressive they were offensive all game.
 
Fang's Bites' Review of CBS' Coverage

http://www.fangsbites.com/2010/02/cbs-aces-its-17th-super-bowl.html

For its game production, CBS kept it simple. It's the game, stupid. There were no shots of Reggie Bush's girlfriend, Kim Kardashian that Fox seemed to overdo during the NFC playoffs. There were no hackneyed shots of wives or other girlfriends on parade. Instead, CBS focused its cameras on the field. There were two notable replays that worked well. A two point conversion caught by Lance Moore that clearly showed him gaining control of the ball then breaking the plane of the goal line before it was jarred loose and called incomplete. Thanks to a reverse angle on the goal line, the call was overturned and the two points given to New Orleans.

The second replay showed a catch by Saints tight end Jeremy Shockey getting hit and his helmet getting jarred by two Colts defenders. CBS' super slo mo and tight shots were not overdone and were done right.

Jim Nantz and Phil Simms meshed well as usual. In their second Super Bowl together, both men did not overhype nor did they overanalyze. Simms allowed the game to breathe and come to him. Right before Tracy Porter's game-changing interception of Peyton Manning, Simms mentioned that the Saints were saving defensive looks in the 4th quarter in hopes of confusing the Colts quarterback. Sure enough, two plays later, Porter made Simms look like a genius with his 74 yard Pick 6 that gave New Orleans a two touchdown lead.

There were two notable glitches. When CBS tried to interchange live action and tape for the introduction of both the Saints and Colts, the audio of players failed to come through and all we at home saw were silent players with their mouths moving. Also, the audio from the field was not clear, but when Commissioner Roger Goodell made an introduction of the winner of the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, suddenly his microphone came in loud and clear. There were portions of the game where the crowd drowned out Nantz and Simms. That went on throughout the night and never got corrected.

CBS saved shots of New Orleans and Bourbon Street until the game was officially over. I thought the network would go to them after the Porter interception, but there was no need to go that early.

For the Big Game, CBS chose to bring back sideline reporters and they utilized analysts Steve Tasker and Solomon Wilcots. Tasker was used throughout the game while Wilcots seemed to disappear after his first report before the opening kickoff.

Overall, the production led by producer Lance Barrow and director Mike Arnold was top notch. CBS has broadcast the most Super Bowls of any network and it showed on Sunday. The overall grade for Super Bowl XLIV on CBS gets an A minus. Very well done, but there were some areas that could have been done better.

For the pregame, an open that paid homage to CBS' previous 16 Super Bowl telecasts was well produced. A 15 minute interview of President Barack Obama by Katie Couric appeared out of place as Ms. Couric pressed the President on health care, the trial of an accused terrorist and other issues. Only in the last minute did Ms. Couric ask the President for his Super Bowl pick. That interview would have been more appropriate on any CBS News program, but not before the Super Bowl.
Click to expand...
 
Not really a surprise since ratings records were falling throughout the playoffs:

The Super Bowl was watched by more than 106 million people, surpassing the 1983 finale of "M-A-S-H" to become the most-watched program in television history.

The Nielsen Co. estimated Monday that 106.5 million people watched the New Orleans Saints upset the Indianapolis Colts. That beats the "M-A-S-H" finale, which had 105.97 million viewers in an era when there were fewer television sets.

Compelling story lines involving the city of New Orleans and its recovery from Hurricane Katrina and the quest for a second Super Bowl ring for Indianapolis quarterback Peyton Manning propelled the viewership.

The game also obliterated the record viewership for a Super Bowl -- 98.7 million people in last year's game between Arizona and Pittsburgh.
Click to expand...

Super Bowl draws biggest viewership of all-time - Super Bowl XLIV - SI.com
 
I thought at the time that maybe we'd see a fine come from that forearm to the face when he was on the ground after taking a decent hit earlier in the game. Thought maybe that spearing late in the game that drew one of the few penalties by New Orleans could have been retaliation.
 
This year's NFL champion put a twist on an old saying:

The 2009 New Orleans Saints- Proof that offense can sell tickets and win championships
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Total: 0, Members: 0, Guests: 0)

Who Read This Thread (Total Members: 1)

Share this page

Share this page
Top