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The Colts’ loss to the Saints prevented Peyton Manning from joining seven other quarterbacks with undefeated Super Bowl records in multiple starts.



The chart shows those seven quarterbacks, including 49ers great Joe Montana.



The Steelers’ Ben Roethlisberger, 2-0 as a Super Bowl starter, has the best chance of joining Montana and Troy Aikman in the 3-0 club, which once featured Tom Brady.



Terry Bradshaw (4-0), Montana and Aikman held a significant advantage over more recent Super Bowl quarterbacks. Each played before salary-cap implications prevented their teams from stockpiling talent. The cap was in place while Aikman was playing, but the Cowboys weren’t affected as much until later in the decade.

The Colts did well to live in the present all season. But after they lost Super Bowl XLIV to the Saints, many quickly turned to the future.

MIAMI – After playing a major part in a play that’s sure to live on in highlight films forever, Thomas Morstead clutched an 8×10 black-and-white photo.



He sat on a stage and spoke through a microphone, but only hinted at what he held in his hand and his heart as he spoke to the international media. He talked at length about the onside kick at the start of the second half that basically tilted the game toward the Saints.



“When coach called that play, and it just made sense to me,’’ said Morstead, a rookie punter, who also handles kickoffs. “My special-teams coach in college, who just passed away last year, he always said, ‘Be more aggressive than the opponent.’ We knew it was open. I was terrified and excited at the same time because I knew we could do it if I executed.”



Then, as he walked back to the New Orleans Saints locker room, Morstead showed the picture and began talking from his heart. He began talking about Frank Gansz Sr., the man who helped Morstead and the New Orleans Saints win the first Super Bowl championship in franchise history.



“I was only with him for a year,’’ Morstead said. “It was crazy how he would always tell me ‘We got one year. We got one year to get you ready.’’’



Gansz was Morstead’s special teams coach at Southern Methodist University. Gansz was a legendary special teams coach who worked on the college and NFL levels for more than 40 years. Gansz died April 27, 2009, the day after the Saints surprised everyone by trading up in the fifth round to draft Morstead.



Gansz had knee-replacement surgery and reportedly died after complications arose.



“As soon as I got drafted I went to the hospital,’’ Morstead said. “He was in a coma. I saw him on a respirator. He used to always tell me ‘God had us together for a reason,’ but he never told me what the reason was. Sometimes I feel like … He’s done a lot for a lot of people.’’



Maybe what happened Sunday night was part of the reason Morstead and Gansz were together last season. Morstead said the experience helped prepare him for when Sean Payton called on him to try to line drive a kick and put backspin on it to open the third quarter. Morstead did and it worked to perfection as teammate Chris Reis recovered.



As Morstead got ready to step back into the locker room, he shook a hand and held the picture of Gansz in the other. He opened the door to the locker room and said he had to make a call. He said he was about to call Gansz’s family.

MIAMI — Of this, there was little doubt: New Orleans brought a smart and fast defense to Miami. Here was the problem as Super Bowl XLIV approached: Indianapolis quarterback Peyton Manning was smarter and faster.



(That’s what a few of us thought, anyway.)



And so it was fascinating to watch Sunday night’s game turn when a 23-year-old Saints cornerback outsmarted Manning late in the fourth quarter. Tracy Porter said he knew “immediately” that the Colts were running one of their “bread and butter” 3rd-down plays with 3 minutes, 24 seconds left in the game. Porter stepped in front of receiver Reggie Wayne, intercepted Manning’s pass and returned it 74 yards for a touchdown. The play accounted for the final margin of the Saints’ 31-17 victory.



“I saw it over and over on film the past two weeks,” Porter said. “On third down, the route they ran there was always big for them to convert third downs on. Through numerous amounts of film study we’ve done all week, when the route came, it felt like I was watching it on film. When I saw the ball coming, I knew I was going to be in the end zone.”



The play capped another high-risk, high-reward performance by the Saints defense, one in which they gave up 432 yards but only one score after the first quarter. Defensive coordinator Gregg Williams mixed versions of the 4-3 and 3-4 in a calculating way that I’ll detail in a bit



Before examining Williams’ successful game plan, however, let’s take a closer look at the play that won New Orleans its first championship. Remember, Wayne would have had an easy first down at the Saints’ 26-yard line in a one-score game had Porter not made the interception.



If anything, Saints players and coaches seemed surprised at how predictable the Colts were on the crucial play. Manning and offensive coordinator Tom Moore are known for prescient late-game play calling, but multiple Saints defenders identified the route tree before the snap.



“I can tell now that Tracy pays attention in the film room,” safety Darren Sharper said. “Because he read that play well and trusted his instincts.”



Before the snap, Porter noticed receiver Austin Collie as the outside receiver and Wayne in the slot position. “We knew Collie wasn’t normally a guy they liked in that spot,” Porter said.



In previous instances of that formation, Porter said, Collie had gone into late motion and run the slot position’s route. The slot man, in turn, ran what’s known as a “stick route” — essentially a 6-yard pattern designed to reach the yardage “stick” and convert a first down.



On cue, Wayne ran that route. He had no chance to make the catch.



“It was just a great play by Porter,” Manning said. “That’s all I can really say about it.”



Indeed, everything about the Saints’ defense on that play suggested a stick route would work. Williams blitzed all three linebackers, leaving open the underneath for what should have been an easy conversion. Who would expect a young cornerback, even one who intercepted Minnesota’s Brett Favre late in the fourth quarter in the NFC Championship Game, to take the risk of jumping a route? Had he missed the ball or guessed wrong, Wayne might have scored.



If you watched the Saints’ defense all year, however, it probably wasn’t a surprise. New Orleans ranked second in the NFL with 39 takeaways, a number you don’t normally achieve if you simply sit back in coverage. Williams, in fact, said he has encouraged his players “to be aggressive, to take chances and to jump routes from the first day I got here.”



Williams added: “If you’re afraid to jump routes, if you’re not willing to play aggressively that way, you’re not going to make it.”



Williams took his own calculated risk Sunday, holding back his trademark blitz packages until the fourth quarter. He employed a 3-4 defense in the first quarter, switched to a 4-3 scheme in the second quarter and then mixed those two fronts with a 3-3 nickel scheme.



“Peyton Manning is too smart to just do the same thing the entire game,” Williams said. “We knew we needed a first half game plan and a second half game plan. And if we could split it between quarters, we would do that too. If you keep doing the same thing against him, he’ll pick you apart.



“But we also said this: If we got to a close game at the end of the Super Bowl, we were going to be who we are. And that’s a pressure defense.”



The blitz didn’t get to Manning on the Porter play. “We had it blocked up fine,” Colts center Jeff Saturday said.



But to me, the triple-linebacker blitz was the reason Manning was so quick to throw in Wayne’s direction — and play right into Porter’s hands.



“He’s so smart that he’ll figure you out if you stay stagnant as a defense,” Sharper said. “We showed something in the first half and then did something different in the second. That’s what we practiced for the past two weeks. I think by the fourth quarter, we did confuse him a little.”



Ultimately, the Saints did what they had done to Arizona and Minnesota in previous weeks — limit scoring through turnovers despite giving up massive yardage totals. The Cardinals rolled up 359 yards but only 14 points thanks to a pair of turnovers. The Vikings scored 28 points but committed five turnovers amid their 475-yard effort.



“Everybody wanted to predict and say this and say that,” Sharper said. “But we took it personally that everyone believed Peyton was going to dice us up and that it was going to be a scoring fest. To hold an offense like that to 17 points is a testament to our team.”



And, as much as anything, its intelligence. The Saints outsmarted Peyton Manning. Who would have predicted that?

MIAMI — You’re going to hear a lot about Sean Payton being a gambler in the coming days. Don’t believe a bit of it.



A gambler is someone who is taking a 50-50 (or less) shot. Payton is not that dicey. He’ll only get risky when he’s convinced the odds are slanted heavily in his favor. So how the heck do you explain Payton’s choice to have a rookie punter try an onside kick to start the second half of the first Super Bowl in franchise history?



Throw in the fact you’re playing the mighty Indianapolis Colts and the even mightier Peyton Manning and the odds of such a play working couldn’t have been more than what? 10 or 20 percent? Tops?



“We felt during the week it was more than a 60 or 70 percent chance,” Payton said. “We felt not [just] good, we felt real good.”



That play, more than anything else that happened Sunday night, is going to symbolize how the New Orleans Saints defeated the Indianapolis Colts 31-17 in Super Bowl XLIV at Sun Life Stadium. Throw in Payton’s decision to challenge a two-point conversion that initially was ruled a failed attempt and a choice to let kicker Garrett Hartley, who is only slightly more than a rookie, kick a 47-yard field goal near the end of the third quarter and you’ve got a lot of big chances.



Enough to subject a coach to months, maybe years, of second guessing if he doesn’t hit on most of them. If you want to get technical, Payton was three out of four on big chances. He also gambled on a fourth-and-goal at the 1-yard line when he called a run by Pierre Thomas instead of passing or kicking a field goal near the end of the first half.



Thomas was stopped short of the goal line, but that was the only gamble Payton missed on all night and it turned out that it didn’t really cost him anything. His defense, which was built on gambling, bailed him out and the Saints got the ball back in time for Hartley to hit a 44-yard field goal as the second quarter ended and cut Indianapolis’ lead to 10-6.



That set the stage for the decision that changed the fate of the entire hard-luck New Orleans region and will live forever in Super Bowl lore. In the locker room, Payton told his team he was going to pull one of the biggest surprises in Super Bowl history.



Shock the world, but not the Saints. Not if you really know what Sean Payton’s all about. He’ll take some chances, but only when he knows there’s a decent shot they’ll work.



“Everyone knows that Sean Payton plays hard and aggressively,” New Orleans offensive tackle Jon Stinchcomb said. “He plays to win the game.”



“That gives us confidence when he does something like that because it shows us how much confidence he has in us,’” linebacker Scott Fujita said.



It gives some of the Saints confidence, but Payton’s dare was something the Colts and the rest of the world didn’t see coming. And, remember, I said only some of the Saints.



Payton told Thomas Morstead, who had been practicing onside kicks for all of 10 days, that he’d be doing it to open the second half.



“For 20 minutes, I sat at my locker terrified,” said Morstead, who handled only punting duties in college. “Not worried, terrified.”



Morstead said he came out of the locker room and worked on his punting as the teams warmed up for the second half. He got so caught up in the bluff that he almost forgot to practice kickoffs. He squeezed one in right before it was time to do the real thing.



“I showed them the same thing I’d done on every kickoff all season long — deep and to the right hash,” Morstead said. “That’s all anybody’s seen out of me.”



Well, anybody who wasn’t at a Saints practice the last 10 days. What Morstead did next was try to make sure he kicked the ball at least 10 yards and put some backspin on it. That’s exactly what happened. After a scramble, New Orleans safety Chris Reis was ruled to have recovered the ball.



“What we were trying to do was create another series [for the offense],” Payton said.



Another series in which the Saints scored the first Super Bowl touchdown in franchise history on a 16-yard pass from Drew Brees to Pierre Thomas. And a series less for Manning and the Indianapolis offense to work the magic they had all season, but didn’t really have Sunday night.



Yeah, the Colts came right back down the field and scored a touchdown to take a 17-13 lead, but the damage had been done and the tone for the rest of the game had been set by the onside kick. Payton followed that gamble by taking another, letting Hartley kick a 47-yard field goal to cut the deficit to a single point.



What you need to know here is that Payton took a gamble on his field goal kickers earlier this season. With Hartley suspended for the first four games of the season for testing positive for a banned dietary supplement, the Saints signed veteran John Carney. He kicked very well and the Saints stayed with Carney long after Hartley’s suspension was over.



The dilemma was the Carney was dependable, but didn’t have a very strong leg. Hartley continued to kick well in practice. Late in the season, Payton elected to release Carney and make him a “kicking consultant” and let Hartley handle the kicking. Could Carney have made the 47-yarder?



Maybe, but the odds were probably less than Payton’s magical 60 to 70 percent. Hartley made it with ease.



Speaking of chances, Payton took his last big one after Brees hit Jeremy Shockey with a 2-yard touchdown pass to give the Saints a 22-17 lead with 5:42 remaining. Instead of leaving Manning with enough time to beat him with a touchdown, Payton chose to go for the two-point conversion.



At first, Brees’ pass to Lance Moore was ruled incomplete. But Payton, with help from assistant coaches who had seen the replay, challenged the call. The play was overturned and the Saints were given two points.



The gambling didn’t really stop there, but that’s only because it started so long ago. You want to know what Payton’s biggest gamble of all was?



Forget about taking the New Orleans job just after Hurricane Katrina because it was a chance for Payton to move up. And forget about the signing of Brees soon after — yes, there were questions about his surgically-repaired shoulder, but there had been evidence before that he could play.



Payton’s real leap came after last season when it became painfully obvious he had a great offense, but absolutely no defense. He fired defensive coordinator Gary Gibbs and got Gregg Williams. Once upon a time, Williams had a reputation as a great defensive mind. That got sullied during stints as a head coach in Buffalo and as a coordinator in Washington and Jacksonville. There were also whispers about how Williams could be a bit of a self-promoter and more style than substance.



Payton threw out $250,000 of his own salary to make sure the Saints got Williams. It turned out to be the best bet he ever made.



Williams came in the door preaching aggressive defense. It worked nicely at the start of the season, but seemed to fizzle around midseason when the Saints ran into some injury problems. The Saints got healthier as the playoffs came and played good defense in victories against Arizona and Minnesota.



But Manning wasn’t supposed to be like Brett Favre or Kurt Warner at the end of their careers. He was supposed to be fool-proof, but Williams and the Saints ended up fooling Manning and sealing the game. Tracy Porter picked off Manning and returned it for a touchdown with 3:12 remaining.



“This is kind of a redemption that makes me feel a lot better,” Williams said. “I’m really happy for the people of New Orleans. They adopted me. When I came to town in January, I tried to tell them I wasn’t a savior.”



No, not a savior, just part of one very calculated gamble that played off.

MIAMI — Reggie Wayne couldn’t bring himself to admit he admired Sean Payton’s intrepid call for an onside kick to open the second half of Super Bowl XLIV.



“I’m the one that’s over here with my lip puffed out,” Wayne said Sunday night in a tent outside Sun Life Stadium. “So apparently it was a good call.”



Wayne and the rest of the Indianapolis Colts‘ offense were left standing on the sideline when the New Orleans Saints pulled off the big gamble.



Experience was supposed to be the difference-maker for the Colts. They’d been on this grand stage before. The Saints had not.



Yet, the Colts were caught unprepared.



The Saints recovered the kick and, six plays later, established themselves as an underdog on paper only. The Saints went on to win 31-17, and leave the Colts wondering about all the plays that got away.



“I didn’t see it coming,” Colts right tackle Ryan Diem said. “At that point in the game, I didn’t expect them to do anything like that. The element of surprise got us.”



Indianapolis was eager to get the ball first after halftime.



Peyton Manning directed the Colts’ offense with his usual meticulousness in the first quarter. First possession: 11 plays, 53 yards, field goal. Second possession: 11 plays, 96 yards, touchdown.



Then came the second quarter. The Colts short-circuited, experiencing their first lamentable play. On third-and-4 from their 28-yard line, Manning zipped a short pass to Pierre Garcon. The play should have gone for a big gain, but Garcon dropped the ball.



“I seen it late, but I should’ve made the catch,” Garcon said. “It was a great throw by Peyton. It should’ve been caught.



“It could’ve made the difference in the game.”



Instead, the Colts were forced to punt for the first time. In the second quarter, they ran only six plays — the second three-and-out series simply running out the clock. They gained 15 yards. They maintained possession for 2:34.



Still, the Colts seemed to be in control. They snuffed Saints running back Pierre Thomas on a fourth-and-goal run play that looked like it would doom Payton to a lifetime of second-guessing in New Orleans.



The double-team tackle by Colts linebackers Gary Brackett and Clint Session was the type of stop that championship teams make.



“The goal-line stand was big,” Colts defensive end Raheem Brock said, “but you’ve got to play the rest of the game.”



They led the Saints by four points at the extended Super Bowl intermission, and as Pete Townshend churned windmills on his guitar, the Colts strategized to bust the game open.



“In the locker room, we just talked about getting the ball back and going down and scoring some points and putting them in a hole,” Wayne said.



The Saints concocted a plan to chop the Colts off at the knees. Thomas Morstead, who handles their kickoffs, was given the onside green light.



“Thomas came up and told me that we were running ‘Ambush,’ ” field-goal kicker Garrett Hartley said. “To start off the second half of the Super Bowl, nothing like it. It’s a gut shot, and it worked out in our favor.”



Six plays later, Saints quarterback Drew Brees connected with Thomas on a 16-yard pass to give them a 13-10 lead.



“Every possession felt precious out there,” Manning said.



The Colts did recover, mounting a typical 10-play, 76-yard drive to retake the lead on their next series.



But the tone had been set. The Saints were willing to trade shots all night, to get aggressive.



The Colts buckled.



“The Saints got some momentum there at the end of the first half and beginning of the third quarter and kind of kept the momentum from there,” Manning said. “I thought we just didn’t play well enough at certain times.”



Indianapolis was outfoxed and outplayed by a team that hadn’t been there, done that.

MIAMI — Tony Dungy wasn’t the only one who thought the Indianapolis Colts would blow out the New Orleans Saints in Super Bowl XLIV.



“I did too,” Colts tackle Ryan Diem said Sunday night.



The Saints’ 31-17 victory proved quite a few people wrong, most notably Dungy, who should have known better than to suggest Peyton Manning would breeze through the Saints’ defense on his way to a second Super Bowl title.



“I think they’re going to be so far ahead,” the former Colts coach had told the New York Times, “that people are going to say, ‘Oh, ho-hum, he played a good game, they won by two scores, the Colts won their second championship.’ ”



The comments created a ripple, but Dungy mostly got a free pass while Gregg Williams, the Saints’ less stately defensive coordinator, took heat for suggesting the New Orleans defense would rough up Manning with “remember-me” hits.



Dungy’s prediction read more like something from Rex Ryan at an MMA event than anything befitting the man NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has anointed as league ambassador. The prediction was so strong, so unflinching, so seeming inconsistent with Dungy’s usual form that I figured he had to be right. Certainly Dungy wouldn’t speak out so strongly if the Saints were the better team.



“I don’t think it’s going to be close,” Dungy had said.



The Colts were going to win in a blowout.



“A blowout?” Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma said. “Well, it didn’t happen.”



The Saints needed overtime to beat the Vikings in the NFC Championship game even though Minnesota suffered from five turnovers, critical penalties and questionable coaching decisions. Logic said the Colts would never suffer so many mistakes. But logic would also fail to explain what the Saints were feeling. From their perspective, this was the only just outcome after the organization stuck it out in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.



Manning and the Colts were a great team, perhaps even the better team on paper, but the Saints felt they were playing for a greater purpose.



“They are really hard to prepare for,” Saints linebacker Scott Fujita said of the Colts, “but the Saints were on a mission and for us it was about much more than just football — much more than just football.



“I think you could see the stadium, we must have had Colts fans outnumbered six, seven to one. Throughout the city all week, the black and gold just poured into Miami to take over the city. I’m getting text messages all week from friends in the U.K., friends in Italy, saying the whole football world is behind us. This is bigger than just the game. The Saints are the world’s team.”



The Saints defied convention with an onside kick to open the second half. They went for it on fourth down when a field goal would have been the politically safe call. Cornerback Tracy Porter jumped the route for the interception he returned 74 yards for the clinching touchdown with 3:12 remaining.



We could view these high-stakes gambles as the Saints’ acknowledgment that taking chances was their only hope against Manning, but that would be missing the mark. The Saints bet big on themselves and won.



“We have been the best team in the NFC,” safety Roman Harper said. “We knew nobody was going to give it to us. We have to go out there and take it. Nobody picked us, nobody believed in us but us and ourselves and our locker room and our city and our families. We went out and proved everybody wrong today.”



Starting with Tony Dungy.

MIAMI — Cue it again.



All the talk about Peyton Manning‘s failures in the clutch, all the comparisons of the Indianapolis Colts to the Atlanta Braves.



Boy, the Colts sure are good in the regular season, but when it comes to collecting rings …



A team that made a season out of fourth-quarter comebacks couldn’t find one Sunday night, and when it came to explaining Tracy Porter‘s game-sealing 74-yard interception return with 3:12 left, the Colts didn’t have a lot to say.



“Porter made a great play on the ball,” Manning said not long after New Orleans’ 31-17 Super Bowl XLIV was in the books and red and silver confetti littered the Sun Life Stadium floor. “He made a good break on it. And he just made a heck of a play.”



“He jumped the route,” said Reggie Wayne, the intended receiver. “He did a good job jumping the route.”



The quarterback and receiver both treaded lightly, not wanting to cast blame about what went wrong on a play Manning said they’ve run quite a bit. The throw was a bit off, or the route was, or both. And while we want to dissect it precisely, they weren’t interested parties.



Brett Favre threw an interception that hurt the Vikings’ shot in the NFC title game in New Orleans. Like Manning, he owns a 1-1 record in the Super Bowl. I expect, though, that while Favre keeps people’s attention cast as a rugged gunslinger, Manning will get a new round of holes punched in his résumé for being a cerebral signal-caller with just a .500 playoff record.



A win would have done a lot for those wanting to crown him the best of all time. A loss led to a classification in much more terrestrial terms.



“I don’t think it dents him,” Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma said. “He’s one of the top three quarterbacks in the league right now. Would he like to have that throw back? Of course. But every quarterback would like to have his interceptions back.



“I don’t think it really does anything to his legacy. He’s still going to be a Hall of Fame quarterback. And if he wins another, he’ll probably be the best quarterback to ever play the game.”



Indianapolis’ Jim Caldwell, the rookie coach who guided an improbably successful season, shared the sentiment.



“I don’t think it will have any bearing on his legacy,” he said. “Obviously, he’s a great player. It never comes down to just one single play in a game. There are a lot of different things that could have happened in that game that could have put us in a different position. He’s still a great player, and outstanding performer, a great competitor. And that doesn’t diminish it at all.”



Even the most confident Saints had to think that Manning could tie the score quickly after Jeremy Shockey caught a 2-yard touchdown pass and Lance Moore added a two-point conversion to put the Saints up 24-17 with 5:42 on the clock: That’s a lot of time for that quarterback and that offense.



Manning and the Colts regularly march the field in less. Their 11-play, 96-yard drive in the first quarter matched the 1985 Bears for the longest touchdown drive in Super Bowl history, and that one took just 4:36.



The way they played in a 14-2 season made them believe they would simply do it again. The worst that could happen was overtime.



With no huddle and out of the shotgun, Manning moved them 39 yards before the fateful third-and-5, which followed a timeout.



Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams said Porter trusted the play, knew the rush up the middle wouldn’t allow Manning the time to beat him deep, allowing him to make the read and jump the pass.



“I felt that was the route they were going to run,” Williams said. “Tracy knew that was the route they were going to run.”



And so with a chance to bolster his legacy, Manning and his Colts instead watched Drew Brees build his. Instead of joining Tom Brady and Ben Roethlisberger as multiple Super Bowl winners, Manning was joined by Brees in a club of quarterbacks with one.



Brees posted the second-best completion percentage in Super Bowl history as the Saints’ 10-point comeback matched the largest deficit overcome to win the ultimate game.



“Peyton Manning and Drew Brees are two of the best quarterbacks in the National Football League, and the people tonight got their money’s worth watching two great warrior quarterbacks play,” Williams said. “We were able to come up with a play, but he made plays also.



“We were able to hit him, we were able to hurry him, we were able to move him off his spot. He was still making plays. We made one play right there that was the difference in the ballgame. I’m sure he’d like to have that one back. But I’m happy we made it.”

Rosenthal: The NFL has also taught us that the league is always going to unpredictable and teams don’t usually progress in a linear fashion. Despite all that, we’ll still try to predict who will be the teams to beat in 2010.