Super Bowl XLIV - Drew Brees or Peyton Manning? 5 Keys to Victory for Saints and Colts

Posted on February 6, 2010 by admin

drew-brees-or-peyton-manning-super-bowl-xliv

Super Bowl XLIV - Keys to Victory for Saints and Colts

Beating Peyton Manning is something that used to routinely happen against the New England Patriots.  The Pats were able to execute a fairly consistent game plan to get the job done. With that in mind, here are five things that to watch for in Sunday’s Super Bowl XLIV between the Colts and the Saints, many of which will look familiar to New England football fans who paid attention to the epic New England-Indianapolis struggles from earlier this decade.

Winning the turnover battle

To be successful on Sunday, the Saints have to force turnovers. They certainly have the ability to pull it off — New Orleans had 39 takeaways in the regular season and has another seven in the postseason, including three in the NFC Championship Game against Brett Favre and the Vikings. It will be a challenge against the Colts, who rarely turn the ball over (Indianapolis lost just five fumbles in the regular season.)

But if they can rattle the Indianapolis offense, it will go a long way toward achieving success. In the 34 Super Bowls in which there has been turnover disparity, 31 teams that have been at least plus-one in differential have won. A plus-two advantage also has produced a 5-1 record in the Super Bowl. Plus-three? 10-1. Of the teams that have managed to hold a plus-four or more advantage: 11-0. (Numbers courtesy NFL.com.)

One of the things that made New Orleans so successful at takeaways this season was an ability to identify players who have issues with ball security and target them. Chances are good they’ve done the same thing over the last two weeks.

“We’ve seen guys that are fumble prone or quarterbacks that just hold the ball loosely and if you sack them, you can get a fumble,” Saints defensive end Will Smith told reporters this week. “We focus on those and pick out those players, so we know (that) if they ever get the ball, that we need to be swiping at it because there is a possibility that they may fumble.”

Remember Super Bowl XXXVI and stay physical

In hopes of stopping the high-powered Indianapolis passing game, the Saints will likely be forced to take a page from the Patriots’ game-plan in 2001 — namely, flood the field with defensive backs and have them play an aggressive, physical game against the Colts’ receivers.

New Orleans should dare Indianapolis to run the football in much the same way that New England dared St. Louis to run instead of pass and played tough, physical football. (In that contest, New England used four defensive backs on nine plays, five defensive backs on 10 plays, six defensive backs on 13 plays and seven defensive backs on one play.)

In that same vein, the Saints need to stay physical all game long on both sides of the football, on both sides of the ball.

“We are going to win this game by finding a way to be more physical than the Colts, end of story,” New Orleans fullback Heath Evans told WEEI earlier this week. “You look at the matchups across the board — you talk about Dallas Clark and Reggie Wayne, if you stop there you are in trouble.

“But then you start adding the guys that they have really had step up for them this year, and you could say we are outmatched. But we have hit people all year, offense, defense and special teams, and I don’t think that is going to change this week.”

Controlling the clock

Another thing the Patriots were able to do in the early part of the decade that made them successful against the Colts was an ability to run the football: Keeping Peyton Manning off the field is the surest way to beat the Indianapolis offense. New England was able to do with a ball-control game, keeping the chains moving on third down and frustrating Manning.

While teams have had mixed success against the Colts earlier this year by attempting to control the clock (in a September game, Miami held the ball for 45 minutes and was 15-for-21 on third downs, but somehow still lost to Indy, 27-23), the Saints will try and do the same thing on Sunday with a stable of running backs who will play a big role in their offensive success.

New Orleans doesn’t have an especially dynamic ground game, but it’s just enough to keep the defense honest. The relatively anonymous Pierre Thomas led New Orleans with 793 rushing yards in the regular season, but it’s been Reggie Bush who has done a nice job of raising his game this postseason, especially when it comes to physical football. (He has run one TD apiece rushing, receiving and returning in the postseason.)

Can the Colts continue to take a punch?

Few teams are as good at taking an initial punch and responding better than the Colts. As we detailed here, starting with the 2006 AFC Championship Game against the Patriots, Indianapolis has shown a tremendous resiliency in big games. Since that fateful night in the since-departed RCA Dome, more often than not, they give up big plays and appear to lose momentum, only to react and rally in the face of a challenge.

They did it last week against the Jets, who sacked Manning twice early and looked to have control early … only to see the Colts rally late in the first half, take control of the game by midway through the third quarter and win going away.

“We’ve been here before,” Indianapolis linebacker Gary Brackett told reporters after spotting the Jets a 17-6 lead before the Colts roared back. “I think the guys were a little rattled at first, I think we took their best shot, but we came back.”

With a bunch of offensive skill position players who have big-play capabilities, the Saints certainly appear to be the kind of team that can score quickly right out of the gate, which could present an familiar challenge for Indianapolis — this season, the Colts have seven come-from-behind wins.

Pressuring the quarterback

Both teams are excellent at protecting their quarterback. Manning was sacked a league-low 13 times in the regular season, while Brees’ suffered 20 sacks, fourth-best in the NFL in the regular season. (In a bit of a surprise, Manning has actually taken more postseason sacks [4] than Brees [1].) On defense, both teams were strictly middle-of-the-pack when it came to getting pressure on the quarterback. (In the regular season, New Orleans had 35 sacks, tied for 13th in the league, while Indy had 34 sacks, tied for 16th.)

However, if Indianapolis defensive end Dwight Freeney is not at 100 percent, it will hamper the Colts’ pass rush — Freeney is Indy’s best pass-rusher, and finished the regular-season with a team-high 13.5 sacks. With Freeney at less than his best, it could give New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees an extra second or two. And giving a deadly-accurate passer like Brees an even greater window could spell doom for the Indianapolis pass defense.

On the other side of the ball, despite the fact that Manning was hit and hit hard on a few occasions by the Jets in the AFC Championship Game, he was not rattled, leading a second-half comeback against New York. New Orleans defensive coordinator Gregg Williams has made no secret about what he wants the Saints’ defense to do Sunday against Manning. They left Brett Favre bruised and bloodied in the NFC Championship Game, and want to do the same thing to Manning on Sunday.

“He’s been the best in the last four or five years on not letting people get to him, so we’ve got our work cut out for us this week,” Williams told reporters who asked about getting after Manning. “When you hit the quarterback and/or cause the quarterback to do things a little off rhythm, then you affect the offense from a rhythm standpoint.”

Who do you think is going to win Super Bowl XLIV between the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts?

Please - leave a comment…

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!