In a moment of grand catharsis, the New Orleans Saints claimed a Super Bowl to be embraced by their fans, their city, their nation.
With a performance of breathtaking aggression and audacity, Sean Payton’s impeccably-drilled team did far more than overturn the odds with a 31-17 victory over the nailed-on favourites, the Indianapolis Colts.
Their achievement could not adequately be expressed, either, as the thwarting of Peyton Manning, by common consent the finest quarterback of his generation.
No, this triumph was nothing less than an act of collective healing. Five years on from the day the levées broke, from when the ravages of Hurricane Katrina cast a first-world city into third-world misery, the Saints provided a powerful palliative.
The tens of thousands of supporters who had spent the best part of six months’ salary on following their team from Louisiana to south Florida streamed out of Miami’s Sun Life Stadium in visible shock.
“There has been a lot of hurt, baby, a lot,” said one woman in a spangly top of the Saints’ black and gold, recalling the times she had to endure tending to neighbours left destitute and dispossessed in Katrina’s wake.
She was preparing to catch a plane straight home to join the celebrations on Bourbon Street, which promise to continue for days, if not weeks.
Payton, the self-effacing head coach whose calls underpinned a courageous Saints comeback from 10-0 down in the first quarter, was a man out of inspiration by the time he hoisted the Vince Lombardi Trophy aloft.
“Everybody in New Orleans gets a piece of this” were about the first words that came to him. Technically, that included Manning. The Colts’ talisman, having put in a ragged display by his immaculate standards, was born and raised in New Orleans and could not begrudge his native city its day in the sun.
Not when he had been comprehensively outmanoeuvred by opposing quarterback Drew Brees, the 31-year old who was named the Super Bowl’s most valuable player having thrown for a record-equalling 288 yards, and who had orchestrated the Saints offence with an array of passes threaded through the eye of a needle.
“It means everything,” Brees said. “We’re here because of their strength and because of everything they fought through over the last few years. We owe it to them.”
As if his dedications could not become any more emotionally loaded, he lingered on the pitch a while longer with his one-year-old son in his arms, crying his eyes out.
It was that kind of night, from the second rap star Queen Latifah belted out a version of ‘America the beautiful’ with uncommon force. Surely even she could not have expected that the Saints would bring the song’s quintessentially American narrative of God-fearing struggle and renewal to fruition quite so stirringly.
The dream ending assuredly looked unlikely when the wiles of Manning drove the Colts to a 10-point lead. Matt Stover, the oldest player in Super Bowl history at 42, had kicked a 38-yard field goal before the quarterback found Pierre Garcon, himself with profound motivation as a man of Haitian descent, for a touchdown at the culmination of a destructive 96-yard drive.
But the Saints would not be cowed, as they amassed 13 unanswered points, first through the unerring boot of Garrett Hartley, who struck two fine field goals, and then through the inspiration of Payton.
Perhaps Payton had felt emboldened by The Who, whose half-time show included a version of ‘Who are you’ every bit as galvanising as the Saints’ anthem of ‘Who dat’ – a bizarre song that originated in Thirties minstrel shows and was recited with gusto here.
Payton’s gamble was to order a short kick-off to start the second half, triggering a mêlée from which the Saints, somehow, emerged with the ball, as Brees picked out Pierre Thomas to score. The Colts, scarcely credibly, had been without possession for more than an hour.
Manning, true to form, rallied to set up a touchdown for his tireless running back, Joseph Addai. Stover, however, lacked the flawless kicking of opposite number Hartley and watched in agony as his 51-yard field goal attempt faded to the left.
Still, the Saints needed to create the clear water of a seven-point margin to engineer a decisive shift in momentum. Jeremy Shockey’s touchdown gave the opportunity, but Payton’s boldness allowed it to be converted.
Brees, shunning the single extra point, passed to Lance Moore for an additional two, only for the touch judge to rule that the ball was not under control. Payton challenged, the ruling was overturned, and a Saints win could be scented.
The game was put beyond any reasonable doubt as Manning faltered. For once, as he desperately tried to contrive a riposte, he was too predictable, aiming a pass once again at his favourite wide receiver, Reggie Wayne. But Wayne was poorly covered and Tracy Porter, the Saints safety, moved in for the kill.
Porter returned the interception all of 74 yards, punching towards the ecstatic Saints support every step of the way. Manning, in desperation, attempted the same combination with Wayne with only 44 seconds remaining, but the pass was incomplete.
The game was still technically alive, but Payton’s players, coaches, reserves – indeed, anybody with the most tenuous connection to New Orleans – had almost a minute in which to erupt into joy unconfined.
