Tag: Super Bowl

0

Reggie Bush Remains Key to Saints' Dreams

NEW ORLEANS -- Sometimes an NFL player gets a suffocating feeling that the games he plays on the field and in the celebrity spotlight can be exhilarating and deflating in one breath. This has been the Reggie Bush experience.

He started his fifth NFL season by returning his 2005 Heisman Trophy, embarrassed by illegal gift-receiving scandals during his USC time. Two games into this season he fractured his right fibula returning a punt in a Monday night clash against the 49ers. In recent days his continued Kim Kardashian episodes have been the buzz of reality TV and gossip.

But Bush, 25, realizes in this league that just when you get hot, something else sizzles. You got a headache? Somebody else has a migraine.

Randy Moss is currently unemployed and the Vikings look dim-witted for having wasted a precious third-round draft pick on a worthless month-long experiment -- Moss didn't fool them once, he fooled them twice. Donovan McNabb has quickly moved his relationship with the Washington coaches closer to the edgy one he just left in Philadelphia. TO and Ochocinco are 2-5 and the Bengals offense is broken.

Buffalo is winless (0-7) and even took overtime last week at Kansas City to extend their torture. Denver has lost four in a row and at 2-6 looks beyond fractured. Dallas (1-6) is contemplating what to do now, what to do tomorrow and what this franchise should look like by its 2011 training camp -- if there is, indeed, football and no lockout.

Michael Vick is back wondering how to get all the way back.

So, Reggie Bush surveys all of this and knows that he is a story, he is a lightning rod, but he is not the center of the NFL universe. He is, though, at the core of what the Saints are and what they need to become to repeat as champions.

This Saints offense has been tripping over itself for much of the season. Finally, against the Steelers here on Sunday night, especially in the final quarter, it solved the Steelers' defense and found ways to make big offensive plays without Bush in winning, 20-10.

Bush says he thinks he could play this weekend when the Saints travel to Carolina. He thinks missing that game and then using a bye week before a return on Nov. 21 at home versus Seattle may make more sense. That date of return would mean seven games for Bush to help push the Saints back into the playoffs and back toward the Super Bowl.

I don't think they get there without him.


Read the entire article Reggie Bush Remains Key to Saints' Dreams -- NFL FanHouse

0

Saints plan to bring pain on champ’s curse

Only one Super Bowl winner repeated in the last decade – the 2004 New England Patriots.  It’s been bleak for everyone else. No other team has returned to the Super Bowl or even reached the conference championship game.  Four of the 10 teams failed to qualify for the playoffs, including the Pittsburgh Steelers last season.

The Lombardi Trophy hangover is real, even for teams that don’t have Bourbon Street a few blocks from their stadium.  Whether it’s the lingering celebration, the loss of motivation or simply the increased demands (business and otherwise) the NFL is not kind to its champions.

So here come the New Orleans Saints, who open their “title defense” (a misnomer since they can’t “lose” their Super Bowl trophy) Thursday against the Minnesota Vikings.   They have vowed, like everyone always does, to reverse the trend.

Come Thursday night 1st game. X marks the spot.”

Favre has refused to take the bait, saying he had no problem with how the Saints played.   His teammates are less forgiving. Defensive end Jared Allen(notes) dubbed Williams as a purveyor of “meathead comments.”  Running back Adrian Peterson promised it’s the Vikings who are “going to be the ones delivering the blows.”

The Saints have fired back arguing Favre gets preferential treatment and calling him “bitter.”

Around and around it has gone. And for the Saints, that’s a good thing.

The trash talk and X-marks-the-spot lines are unnecessary and probably ineffective – guys have been trying to knock Iron Man Brett out of games for two decades.   They do serve a purpose by both adding focus and ferocity to the Saints’ preparation.

For all of the pyrotechnics of Drew Brees(notes) and the offense (best in the league last year), the Saints needed their physical, in-your-face defense to create victories.   Their point differential was a league-high 10.6 points a game.

This isn’t the NFL’s most talented defense.   It can’t just turn it on the way Baltimore or San Francisco or the New York Jets can.   It lacks the personnel. The Saints need a chip on their shoulder in order to thrive.   They are at their best when they are bitter, aggressive and playing with something to prove.

Attempting to silence the Vikings may be just what they needed.    It might explain why Williams was willing to fuel the controversy with his summer comments.

Motivation is motivation, and when it comes to Super Bowl champions it isn’t always easy to find.

“Most of the challenges become internal, dealing with success,” Payton said last summer.

An angry Saints defense is, presumably, not thinking about raised banners and roaring fans.   They are ready for some football – smash-mouth style. The night is about the fight.

Ultimately it may not help against the Vikings.   It should have little bearing on midseason or January.

Right now it can’t hurt though. It’s a sign they are serious.   After so many defending champs that weren’t prepared for the season after the glory, maybe this shows the Saints actually are different.

 

1

2009 New Orleans Saints awarded Super Bowl rings

In an unreservedly delicious moment, the 2009 New Orleans Saints gathered as a team for perhaps the last time Wednesday night, walking the red carpet to the Roosevelt Hotel and heading inside for a private ceremony to receive Super Bowl XLIV championship rings. The Tiffany pieces, glittering with diamonds and yellow gold, were remarkably valuable in and of themselves -- no one would offer a precise appraisal, although some estimates ran to $30,000 a pop -- but quarterback Drew Brees said they were more priceless than a Faberge egg. "It symbolizes not just this year, but the culmination of four years of ups and downs," Brees said. "A lot of work and a lot of struggle, but we found a way to become world champions -- and it was never about just one person or even just the team. It was about our city and the community."

Click to read the original Saints article by New Orleans Saints Central