NFL Capsules: Who dat? Archie's boy waiting for Super Saints
Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints?
Well, Archie’s boy might have something to say about that.
In a stunning turn of events, the team led through its formative years by a strong-armed quarterback named Archie Manning has finally made it to the Super Bowl. And look who’s standing in the way of the first NFL championship in New Orleans’ largely forgettable 43-year history as a pro football city.
None other than Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts.
Archie’s son guided the Colts into the Super Bowl with a 30-17 victory over the upstart New York Jets in Sunday’s AFC championship game. About four hours later, the Saints stamped their ticket for South Beach by beating Brett Favre and the Minnesota Vikings 31-28 in an overtime thriller that decided the NFC title.
The winners will face off for the ultimate prize Feb. 7 in Miami.
Ever the doting father, Archie Manning attended the AFC championship game along with another son, New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning, and made it clear he’ll be rooting for the Colts in the Super Bowl, though he knows a Super Bowl title would mean so much to his adopted hometown.
The elder Manning still lives in New Orleans, hanging in there even as the city struggles more than four years later to overcome the hellishness of Hurricane Katrina.
"I’m pulling for the Colts 100 percent," Archie Manning said. "It’s not even close."
Still, the family subplot hovering over this game will give everyone plenty to talk about during the next two weeks.
Archie Manning was a hotshot quarterback out of neighboring Mississippi when was selected No. 2 overall by the Saints in the 1971 draft. Everyone in New Orleans thought he was just the sort of player who could break the shackles of expansion ineptitude and turn around a franchise that went 14-40-2 over its four seasons in the NFL.
That might have been the case — if the Saints had bothered to bring in some linemen who could block or some receivers who could catch.
Playing nearly a dozen years in New Orleans, Manning became the pitiful face of a team that couldn’t seem to do anything right. He spent more time sprawled out on his back than a Bourbon Street reveler. The Saints never cracked .500 during the Manning era — in fact, near the end of his career, the team plunged to 1-15 and fans took to wearing paper sacks on the heads, calling themselves the ‘Aints.
Manning moved on to Houston, then finished up his career in Minnesota, of all places. His career record as a starter was 35-101-3, a .263 percentage that ranks as the worst in league history among quarterbacks with at least 100 starts.
The Saints didn’t post a winning record until 1987, their 21st season in the league. But that’s all in the past now, erased by a high-scoring team that won its first 13 games this season, wiped out Arizona in the divisional round, then ended the twice-retired Favre’s hopes of getting back to the Super Bowl at age 40.
It didn’t come easy. The Vikings were in position to win it at the end of regulation before Favre brazenly tried to pull off a tough throw back toward the middle of the field while rolling to his right, the ball was picked off to send the game to overtime.
Then, the team that spent a year on the road after Katrina pummeled its city and became a rallying cry for a still-fledgling rebirth, won the toss and drove into Vikings territory to set up Garrett Hartley’s 40-yard field goal. The kick sent a celebrating crowd pouring out onto Bourbon Street for a party sure to last through the night.
The Colts’ victory wasn’t nearly as dramatic, and the revelry in a city known for fast cars and sleepy nightlife wasn’t nearly as raucous. Then again, this is a group that has come to expect success since Archie’s boy arrived, reaching the Super Bowl for the second time in four years.
"When (Manning) goes up against the best, he takes his game to another level," Colts rookie coach Jim Caldwell said. "I think that’s something we’ve kind of grown accustomed to around here."
Indy closed out the 2006 season with a 29-17 victory over the Chicago Bears, making Tony Dungy the first African-American coach to win the Super Bowl. Now, Caldwell has a shot as being the third black coach in four years to take the title, and just the third first-year coach to win it all.
Not that he’s looking for any extra attention. That’s something he’s gone to great lengths to avoid since taking over as Dungy’s anointed successor, his most debated move coming when he pulled the starters in the next-to-last game to ruin a 14-0 team’s shot at perfection.
This is perfect enough.
"I’ve never needed anybody to tell me I’ve done a good job," Caldwell said. "The great thing about this league? We’ve got a great barometer that tells you what kind of job that you’ve done, and that’s that won-lost record."
So, the Colts are headed back to the big game, to face the team that hails from the city where Manning was born, the fleur-de-lis-clad guys he cheered for as a child.
Who dat he’s got to beat to win another ring? Yep, it’s his daddy’s team.
Indy favored to win Super Bowl over New Orleans
LAS VEGAS — Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts opened as a four-point favorite to beat New Orleans in the Super Bowl.
Oddsmaker Sean Van Patten of Las Vegas Sports Consultants said the firm gave that line after watching New Orleans struggle to beat the Minnesota Vikings in the NFC championship game Sunday night. Las Vegas Sports Consultants provides betting lines for roughly 90 percent of sports books in Nevada.
"The big factor here is that Indy has been there," Van Patten said. "The experience factor is such a huge thing when it comes to the Super Bowl."
Manning and the Colts won the Super Bowl in 2007 over the Chicago Bears.
Patten said oddsmakers like that Indianapolis has succeeded against two top NFL defenses in consecutive games. The top-seeded Colts beat the New York Jets 30-17 Sunday in the AFC championship.
Indianapolis was a 4½-point favorite in the Glantz-Culver line, with the over-under at 55½ points.
Sports books gave Indianapolis 8-1 odds to win the Super Bowl at the start of the season, compared with 18-1 for New Orleans.
"I think the Saints are very fortunate to be in there," said Jay Kornegay, executive director of the race and sports book at the Las Vegas Hilton. "To get five turnovers at home and having to go to overtime to win it, I don’t think they were playing that well."
New Orleans outlasted Minnesota 31-28 in overtime, even though the Vikings gained 218 more yards and had nearly twice as many first downs as the Saints.
Jay Rood, race and sports book director for casino operator MGM Mirage, said bettors began favoring Indianapolis soon after New Orleans won and the odds were posted.
Rood said that was because the Colts have been consistent all year, while Saints bettors who lost Sunday because New Orleans didn’t cover the spread didn’t want to take the team again so soon.
"They don’t usually come right back on the team that just burned them on a bet," Rood said.
-- Oskar Garcia
Super Bowl brings good news to host city Miami
MIAMI — South Florida is ready for the Super Bowl party to begin.
Four teams are trying Sunday to punch their tickets to the tropical playland, and though the game isn’t until Feb. 7, Miami officials don’t want revelers to wait.
"The last time I looked outside, all the hoteliers were dancing in the street," said Rodney Barreto, chairman of the South Florida Super Bowl Host Committee. "This is going to be a big shot in our arm. And it couldn’t have come at a better time."
The city has changed in the three years since the last Super Bowl was held here because of massive job losses, historically high foreclosures and fortunes lost.
But partygoers need not worry.
Miami remains an escape, still offering dependable sun and sand, barely dressed women crowding beaches and dance floors and an international flavor all its own.
"I’m looking out the window at Biscayne Bay and we see a sailboat and we see cruise ships in the port, we’re looking at hotels with people by the pool," said Bill Talbert, head of the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau. "At the end of the day, for the Super Bowl, bottom line is it’s warm here and it’s cold there."
There’s a reason the game is coming to town for a record 10th time. It’s a reliably good time. But Miami has faced some tough times during its three-year Super Bowl hiatus:
— The real estate boom was in full swing last time. This time, streets are lined in for-sale signs, home prices are down by almost half from their peak, and the foreclosure rate has multiplied by nearly six.
— The unemployment rate was at 3.6 percent two months before the last Super Bowl here. Three years later, it was nearly triple.
— Last time the game was here, heads were bowed for a moment of silence, two days after tornadoes killed 20 people in central Florida and destroyed hundreds of homes. Now the earthquake in Haiti is fresh on residents’ minds.
— The Orange Bowl is gone. A new Marlins stadium is one of the only big things being built. And the site of the 2008 Super Bowl, Dolphins Stadium? Well, that became Land Shark Stadium. Until this week, when it was renamed again, as Sun Life Stadium.
Talbert says Miami stands up to the great cities of the world, mentioning it in the same breath as Paris, Rome, Tokyo and Sydney. He says the city remains a strong draw for the very same reasons people came a generation ago.
Dario Moreno agrees. The political science professor at Florida International University who writes frequently about South Florida says "Miami continues.
"It’s still the beach, it’s still its multiculturalism, it’s still its fabulous nightlife, it’s still kind of a place where people from Latin America, Europe and the Northeast come together," Moreno said.
Observers also point to the continuing draw of other Miami-area places, outside the one everyone thinks of: South Beach. Fort Lauderdale has drawn some visitors northward and development elsewhere in Miami has led to up-and-coming neighborhoods including the Design District, which has continued to come alive with galleries and studios, another sign of the city’s growing place in the art world.
"It’s a hell of a lot smarter a city than people give it credit for," said Adam Karlin, author of Lonely Planet’s guidebook on Miami.
Art Basel, the annual international festival that draws people from around the world to South Beach each December, continues to grow, and a sparkling new art museum and performing arts center are in the works.
"You can no longer call Greater Miami a cultural wasteland," Talbert said. "It’s now on the cutting edge of the world."
And happily the center of the football world for the next two weeks.
-- Matt Sedensky
Fletcher, Furrey, Waters finalists for award
NEW YORK — Redskins linebacker London Fletcher, Browns wide receiver Mike Furrey and Chiefs guard Brian Waters are finalists for the NFL’s Man of the Year Award.
The award, named for the late Hall of Fame running back Walter Payton, which goes annually to the player who combines on-field excellence with off-the-field community service.
This season Fletcher started a curriculum, mentoring program for 25 Washington, D.C., middle school students. The students visited Capitol Hill, talked with congressmen, explored museums, distributed food to local residents and participated in a forum about peer pressure, health and education.
"I’m extremely humbled by being one of the three finalists," Fletcher said. "Each team submits all their individual ‘Men of the Year’ candidates, so out of 32 players I’m one of three who’s been selected to be the Walter Payton Man of the Year, so truly I’m humbled and honored."
Furrey created a foundation and spends time supporting charitable causes. The foundation has created relationships with local kids in the community as well as with more than a dozen charitable organizations. Furrey provides inspiration for children in hospitals, serves as a mentor for kids in children’s homes, tackles hunger and nutrition issues, supports neighborhood development and organizes holiday initiatives.
Waters’ foundation has awarded 82 college scholarships to low-income students. Children have benefited from his back-to-school program that provides backpacks with school supplies, as well as haircuts, uniforms, shoes, immunizations and dental care.
Recent winners include Kurt Warner of the Cardinals in 2008, Jason Taylor of the Dolphins in 2007, and Drew Brees of the Saints and LaDainian Tomlinson of the Chargers, co-winners in 2006.
The winner will be announced live on CBS before the Super Bowl on Feb. 7.
