Coming Back Stronger (28 page)

The Road to the Super Bowl

In the weeks before the playoffs, all we heard from outside the organization was that no team had gone to the Super Bowl on the heels of three regular-season losses. People speculated about which team would show up—the lackluster team from the past few weeks or the dedicated guys who had been finishing strong the majority of the season. We did our best to zero in on what our coaches were saying and ignore the questions and media hype.

We watched the first round of the playoffs with interest because the winner of the Packers–Cardinals game would face us in the Superdome. It was a wild game with a lot of back-and-forth, and Arizona eventually pulled out a win in overtime. We knew they had expended a lot of energy on that game, emotionally and physically. But if anyone was up to the challenge, it was the Cardinals. They had gone to the Super Bowl the previous year, and their offense looked outstanding against Green Bay. We had a huge opportunity ahead of us, and it was time to get prepared.

In football and in life, it’s amazing how many big results depend on the little things. When you’re experiencing success, it’s easy to gloss over those details. As the playoffs loomed ahead, we knew we couldn’t afford to get sloppy. So we encouraged each other to look at the goal sheets we’d filled out at the start of the season. What were our team goals as an offense and a defense? What personal goals did we set? Each player looked in the mirror and asked, What can I do better? What do I need to do to fulfill my role on this team the best way possible? In any area we were coming up short, we needed to take specific steps to adjust and modify. When we took care of the process, the end result would take care of itself.

One of the little things we wanted to focus on in the matchup against Arizona was letting our presence be felt. Our goal was to make this the most physical game we’d played all season. At that point, it wasn’t about the Super Bowl. We saw only Arizona.

As was the case in almost every big game that season, we got off on the wrong foot. On Arizona’s first play from scrimmage, Tim Hightower took a handoff and ran through a big hole for a seventy-yard touchdown. That was a huge boost for Arizona, and we knew we couldn’t let them capitalize on it or use it to set the tone for the rest of the game. It was time for our offense to answer the call.

We drove down the field, and with each play our intensity picked up. We tied the score on a short run by Lynell Hamilton. Then, on the very next play from scrimmage, our defense forced a fumble. Darren Sharper picked up the ball and returned it to the Cardinals’ thirty-seven yard line. On that drive I found Jeremy Shockey in the end zone, propelling us into the lead. Reggie Bush kept the momentum going with a forty-six-yard touchdown run, and later he had an eighty-three-yard punt return for another touchdown. The Superdome went electric, and it was hard to hear anything in the stadium above the roar of the crowd.

We scored on five of our six possessions in the first half—finally, the fast start we’d been looking for. After seeing Arizona score fifty-one points the week before against Green Bay, we knew how important it was to score early and often.

We put the Cardinals away with a final score of 45–14. We had made a statement to any team coming into our house that we were ready. They could forget those last three games of the regular season. We had trusted our process, even though it had been questioned by the talking heads on television and other people who were throwing in their two cents. We had proved something, and now we would be hosting the NFC Championship Game for the first time in team history.

Based on records alone, the consensus was that the Vikings and the Saints were the best teams in the NFC. The Vikings had taken some heat for losing to Chicago, Arizona, and Carolina toward the end of their season, and everyone wondered how they would do against the surging Cowboys in the NFC divisional playoff. As it turned out, there was no need to worry: the Vikings beat the Cowboys 34–3. That win gave Minnesota a date with us in the Superdome.

There’s no doubt Brett Favre is a great quarterback. He plays with passion and heart every time he steps out on the field. He returned to the game and signed with Minnesota in 2009, and that season turned out to be one of his best ever. He had an all-star cast behind him too—the Vikings had a lot of weapons offensively, and their defense boasted one of the best pass rushes in the NFL.

Throughout the entire season, no team had scored a touchdown against Minnesota in the first drive of the game. We were determined to change that. After they scored on a run by Adrian Peterson, we answered with a screen pass to Pierre Thomas that he turned into a thirty-eight-yard touchdown. Was this a bit of foreshadowing about how the game would play out?

The championship game was close all the way. After we tied it up 7–7, Favre threw to Sidney Rice for another touchdown. Then I hit Devery Henderson in the back of the end zone to tie things up again, 14–14. That’s how we went into the half.

In a game as tight as that one, every play, every decision, is critical. One turnover or one key completion can change the entire outcome of the game. In the second half, we got a big boost when Courtney Roby ran the opening kick back into Vikings territory for sixty-one yards. Pierre Thomas had a nine-yard run that put us up 21–14. But the Vikings came right back with another touchdown by Adrian Peterson. The score was tied again, 21–21.

Our defense came up big with a fumble recovery at the beginning of the fourth quarter. I hit Reggie Bush with a pass that was originally ruled just shy of the end zone. But after a review it was determined that as he spun around, the ball broke the plane of the goal before he went out-of-bounds. That put us up 28–21. We took the ball away again, this time deep in our territory, but we were forced to punt and Favre brought the Vikings back downfield. With about five minutes to go, Adrian Peterson rushed for his third touchdown of the day.

We couldn’t manage to score, and we gave the ball to the Vikings again. They began to drive and were gaining quality yards on every play. They were in our territory at third down and fifteen, with about twenty seconds left. They were just outside field goal range, and they needed one more completion to advance the ball and attempt a long field goal that would give them the lead with mere seconds left in the game.

Things weren’t looking good for us, but somehow we knew we were going to win that game. The whole team felt like we were going to stop Minnesota. We didn’t know how, but we were going to find a way. Then a “destiny moment” happened.

Favre scrambled to his right and threw back across his body to the middle of the field. He has probably thrown that pass a thousand times, but this time Tracy Porter jumped in front of the receiver and intercepted the ball. That was our moment; that was our opportunity.

We went into overtime and won the toss. Pierre Thomas had a good return that set us up at our thirty-nine yard line. We drove into Viking territory but were stopped on fourth and inches just outside their forty-two. Sean had a tough decision to make: Should we go for the first down? Or should we be conservative and punt? Going for it was risky because if we didn’t make it, the Vikings would have a short field. But Sean had been making those gutsy calls all year. We went for it. Pierre Thomas leaped over the line, giving us the first down.

We kept moving the ball and got to the Viking twenty-two, well within field goal range. It was up to Garrett Hartley to make the kick, and no doubt he was having flashbacks to a game earlier that season. We were playing Tampa Bay, and he’d missed a critical fourth-quarter field goal. We’d assured him that we win as a team and lose as a team, but he’d taken it hard. And now here he was getting ready to kick again—oddly enough, from almost the exact location as he’d been against Tampa Bay.

Now the kick was magnified a thousand times. With this forty-yard field goal, we go to the Super Bowl. Without it . . . well, we didn’t even want to think about that possibility.

Garrett stuck it right down the middle.

He told me after the game that the night before he had woken up at 2 a.m. and called his father to describe the dream he’d had. In his dream, he’d made a game-winning kick from the right hash thirty yard line. Now that is a vision! There’s no doubt in my mind that the adversity he’d faced against Tampa a month earlier had given him the strength and focus to nail this one—in his dream and in reality.

The fans went wild. Confetti flew. People screamed and hugged each other with joy. Brett Favre came up to me to shake hands. He had put his heart and soul out on the field that day. He’d been knocked around pretty hard, and he looked spent. It’s a bit artificial to try to have a meaningful conversation with an opponent in the midst of so many cameras and so much noise, and when the gravity of the game hasn’t even set in yet. But I was able to tell him how much I admire him and what an honor it was to share the field with him. Just knowing I was able to experience that moment with one of the greatest of all time, in a setting like that, was a memory I’ll treasure for a long time.

This dream was forty years in the making for the city of New Orleans. The fans had ridden the ups and downs of every season since 1967 but had never made it this far. And in the years since Katrina, the journey to the top of this mountain seemed loaded with even more meaning.

It had been four years of firsts. We snagged our first NFC South division crown. We hosted our first playoff game. We made it to an NFC championship for the first time. In 2009 we were the number one seed for the first time ever. On top of that, it was our first time hosting and winning the NFC championship. And of course, it was our first Super Bowl.

With each one of those firsts, people felt like they were part of something special. After all the losing seasons and the heartbreak of Katrina, their loyalty to their team and their city was paying off. I received a note from a man who had been a season ticket holder for forty-three years. He said he’d lived through the days of people wearing paper bags over their heads at games and calling the team the Aints. “Well, we ain’t the Aints no more,” he wrote.

The support from our fans wasn’t confined just to the Superdome. They went with us as far as they could on our journey—and I mean that literally.

For our away games, we fly out of a private air terminal on charter flights. Traveling to and from the terminal, we have to drive down a half-mile-long frontage road off the highway. Starting in 2006 and continuing through 2009, fans would park along that road after an away game and wait for us. Win or lose, it didn’t matter—we could count on them being there. It became a block party of sorts, and they brought food, played music, talked, wore their Saints jerseys, and had a good time. As we drove by, we’d roll down our windows, honk, and wave at them.

In 2009 the block party became supersized. As our winning streak continued, there were ten thousand fans waiting for us, then twenty thousand, and eventually as many as thirty thousand. It took us about ninety minutes just to make it down that half mile. It was like a parade—people surrounded our cars and leaned in to get autographs and touch us. They handed us songs they’d written about the team that incorporated players’ names into the lyrics. They even threw baked goods like pralines and cookies into our windows. They showed their appreciation in every way imaginable. After a while, though, the crowd got too big, and there were safety concerns. The police put up barricades to keep people off the road, but that didn’t stop us from honking and waving.

Now those fans were willing us on to “Mission Miami.” No fans deserved it more.

Coach Payton warned us about the two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl. He had been there before, when he was an offensive coordinator with the Giants and they made it to Super Bowl XXXV. Still, there was no way to truly prepare us for the whirlwind we were about to step into.

Most people don’t realize that you have responsibilities to the league leading up to the game—the NFL requires an hour’s worth of media every day. And usually that media time is in the middle of the day, so you have to structure your schedule around it. On the Tuesday before the game (which is typically a day off during the regular season), pretty much the whole day is taken up by media. We do the team picture in uniform and then get interviewed by reporters.

That probably doesn’t sound like a big deal to most people, but when you’re routine oriented like I am and you’re getting ready for the pinnacle game in your sport, it’s enough to make you sweat. I don’t just have a routine I follow on game day; I have a routine I follow the entire week before a game. That preparation includes things like lifting weights, watching film, going to practice, throwing the ball, and going to sleep at a certain time. I don’t let anything get in the way. With the new Super Bowl week schedule, I had to adjust and figure out alternate times to fit everything in.

Plus, there was the family aspect to consider. Brittany and Baylen were in the hotel with me, so I modified my routine to spend time with them. That discipline of being with my family is good for me—it keeps things in perspective and prevents me from overworking. My job is important to me, but I never want it to compromise the time I spend with my family.

I called a couple of friends before the game and asked their advice on how to handle the Super Bowl hoopla. Kurt Warner wears a Super Bowl ring, and I appreciate his outlook on life. His advice to me was to embrace the whole experience. A lot of guys see the media and the attention as intrusions, but he told me I had a great story to tell. As a team, we’d had an unbelievable season, and there was a lot to be excited about.

“Don’t see it as a chore,” he encouraged me. “Just embrace it.” Kurt gave me some practical tips, like having the offensive line dinner early in the week before the crowds descended. Normally we had dinner with the big fellas on Thursday night, but that week we scheduled it for Monday instead. Finally, he encouraged me to enjoy the experience with my teammates and with Brittany and Baylen.

Kurt’s words helped me go in with the mentality that all the requests and questions were an opportunity to highlight other players who don’t get enough credit and to talk about our great fans and the city of New Orleans. To my surprise, I had a number of opportunities to talk about my faith as well.

Then I spoke with Trent Dilfer, another Super Bowl winner. He counseled me to come up with a routine around the new schedule and stick to it. He also advised me to pace myself, especially early in the game, and to savor the moment whenever I could.

When game day arrived, I tried to make things as normal as possible. We ate breakfast together as a team and then met at 10:00. The meeting typically lasts about an hour, and then from 11:00 until 3:00, we’re on our own. The coaches don’t want us out on the town, so that means we’re in the hotel. This is a glimpse of what my pregame routine is like: I come to the room, study the game plan, walk through or visualize plays, and then order a sandwich and watch a movie. That’s what I’ve found works best to get me mentally prepared for the game. On Super Bowl Sunday, instead of watching a movie, I spent time with Baylen and Brittany. I was as prepared for that game as I’d ever been, and it was a treat to just be with my family.

I never watch any of the pregame hype. I don’t want anything the announcers say to influence what I’m thinking. It doesn’t matter if the critics think we’re going to win or lose—the important thing is for me to get my head in the right place. I would need my focus in this game more than ever.