FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Clearly exhausted from a late night of post-Super Bowl celebrations, New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton leaned on a podium Monday morning, clutching the Vince Lombardi Trophy in his right hand.
“You can’t get enough of this,” Payton said at a news conference. “This thing lay in my bed next to me last night, rolled over it a couple times. I probably drooled on it. But man, there’s nothing like it.”
Certainly, the Saints never experienced anything like it.
Before this one, the Saints had only eight winning seasons — and two playoff victories — in their previous 42 years combined. New Orleans had to win three postseason games over three great quarterbacks — the Cardinals’ Kurt Warner, the Vikings’ Brett Favre and the Colts’ Peyton Manning — to win the NFL title this season.
The last quarterback standing was Drew Brees, who joined Payton in 2006 with the idea of transforming the Saints into champions for a region needing widespread rebuilding after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005.
That was easier said than done, but in their fourth season together, they did it. Brees was chosen the Super Bowl MVP after Sunday night’s 31-17 victory over the Colts. After that, his only challenge left was believing he’d actually pulled it off.
“I had to wake up this morning and turn to my wife and say, ‘Did yesterday really happen?’ ” Brees said.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell called this Super Bowl “clearly more than a game.”
“I keep thinking of the word ‘magical,’ ” he said. “When you think about the relationship between the Saints and the Gulf Coast and the city of New Orleans, it was more than just a football game and more than just a football team. The hopes, the dreams and the struggles of that community were all reflected in that football team.”
Added Brees: “I think what’s going to be fun is using the term ‘repeat’ all next year.”
Brees might mention “repeat” all next season, but the Saints won’t be favored to accomplish the feat.
Manning and the Colts are favored to win next year’s Super Bowl, according to odds released by .
Indianapolis is a 7-1 favorite to take home the 2010 NFL championship, followed by the Chargers (8-1), Saints (9-1) and the Patriots (10-1).
The Rams, coming off a 1-15 season, are the longest title shot on the board at 150-1.
