Amazing also happens in the NFL at the Super Bowl

By DAVID THOMAS

dthomas@star-telegram.com

It is fitting that the NBA All-Star Game follows the Super Bowl on the big sports schedule.

We now have two leagues where amazing happens.

The New Orleans Saints winning a Super Bowl championship definitely qualifies as amazing.

The team that had won two playoff games in its first 42 seasons, that has only nine winning seasons, that was called the Aints, that saw its fans attend games with brown paper bags over their heads... that team on Tuesday took part in a Super Bowl championship parade.

Let's just say that it would not be surprising to learn that the Mid-Atlantic has not been the only place where they're shoveling snow this week, if you know what I mean.

If you have seen the pictures and videos from New Orleans since about 8:45 p.m. Sunday, then you know why Mark Cuban chose to say the NBA's All-Star Weekend would make Super Bowl weekend look like a bar mitzvah instead of making that comparison with a potential post-Super Bowl celebration in New Orleans.

New Orleans, of course, has a well-deserved reputation for knowing how to celebrate. And that despite having very little to celebrate sports-wise. Now that the Saints have given New Orleanians a championship to celebrate... well, they've seen the NBA's bar mitzvah and raised it a Mardi Gras.

If there is one thing that the Saints' victory proves, it is that Tony Dungy knew what he was doing when he retired from coaching so that he could, among other things, do more motivational speaking.

Dungy said the Dallas Cowboys of Arlington had "no chance" to defeat the then-undefeated Saints in New Orleans. That certainly motivated the Cowboys.

Dungy said he would be "absolutely shocked" if the Saints defeated the Indianapolis Colts in the Super Bowl. That certainly motivated the Saints.

Dungy also said that if necessary, Peyton Manning could lead a late drive to win the game, although that would not be necessary because the Colts would win by two scores.

Let me add here that I am a huge Tony Dungy fan. If he told me that tonight is Christmas Eve, I would immediately, without questioning him, bring down the stockings from the attic. His football predictions, however, are a different matter.

Myself, I knew that something amazing might happen a little shy of midway through the second quarter.

The Colts had led 10-0, and we all know that only once in the previous XLIII Super Bowls had a team come back from a 10-point deficit to win, and that was way back when a 30-second Super Bowl commercial cost only $645,000. So we're talking a long time ago.

But then Garrett Hartley kicked a 46-yard field goal to cut the Saints' deficit to 10-3 and CBS went to commercials.

You probably remember that turning point in the broadcast. That is when we saw David Letterman, Oprah Winfrey and Jay Leno together in a promo for Letterman's show.

Leno promoting Letterman's show? That is when I knew that there remained no barriers to the Saints winning a Super Bowl. And, as history has recorded, they did.

Don't forget that we almost had amazing happen last year when the Arizona Cardinals came close to winning the Super Bowl.

The Cardinals reached a Super Bowl. The Saints won a Super Bowl.

So I guess we should expect to see the Detroit Lions here next year for XLV?

That wouldn't be amazing. That would be ridiculous.

David Thomas, 817-390-7760

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