Drew Brees celebrates while Peyton Manning ponders another playoff blunder

Miami Gardens, Fla.

The greatness of the game is that it defines it.

That's also its absurdity, but in this country we love our American Idols, don't we?

The Super Bowl creates legends. Ruins them, or at least tarnishes them, too.

And this year will be no different.

The Saints' upset victory in Super Bowl XLIV, 31-17 over the Indianapolis Colts, vaults Drew Brees, the Little Quarterback Who Could, into a new realm of the game's elite, even though his production already suggested he belonged there.

It also turned weeks of conversation about Peyton Manning possibly being the GOAT -- the Greatest Of All Time -- to ensuring he's the goat, at least on this night. And with a career playoff record that fell to 9-9, he and the Colts will be back to answering the same, old questions about their track record of playoff shortcomings.

If he's the greatest, how come he only wins half the time when it counts?

"It feels great to win," Saints coach Sean Payton said Monday morning, still groggy after sleeping -- only briefly, he said -- with the Vince Lombardi Trophy. "I mean, I've been in this game where we didn't win."

Bump in the road

So has Manning now, though the stage was set for him to join a select group of two-time champs late in the fourth quarter. The Colts took possession at their own 30-yard line with 5 ˝ minutes left, trailing by a touchdown. In the regular season, Manning pulls off comebacks like that with his eyes closed. He rallied Indianapolis past the New York Jets two weeks ago in the AFC title game.

Sunday, what he did was throw away the game, as the Saints' Tracy Porter pounced on a tendency, jumped a route and fooled the guy who's always prepared. Some will tell you Reggie Wayne deserves a bigger share of the blame, and on a night where he was a non-factor, that's at least as accurate as the pass itself.

But regardless, Porter's 74-yard interception return with 3:12 left sealed his team's ultimate triumph.

"Disappointed," Manning said, looking a bit bewildered -- but gracious as ever -- in his postgame news conference. "It's just disappointing."

A disappointment? No, that's too harsh. Manning's numbers already put him among the all-time greats, and the league's only four-time MVP probably will play several more years. (The Colts will make him a $100 million quarterback soon, just as the Saints will do with Brees.)

Role reversal

This is not to confuse him with his brother, Eli, as the Saints' Darren Sharper jokingly did last week. Not when Eli, who won a Super Bowl in 2008, can still board a plane from Miami to Memphis the morning after a Super Bowl in relative anonymity, as I watched him do Monday. (OK, it was 5 a.m. and most of the Saints' fans were too bleary-eyed to notice.)

Peyton Manning's still the game's most recognizable face -- a marketer's dream. But he's also a man who was outplayed in the end Sunday night by Brees, who was as close to perfect as you'll ever see for the final three quarters of the game. Less than 24 hours later, it was Brees hanging out with Mickey Mouse in Disney World, not Manning.

"I woke up this morning and said to my wife, 'Did yesterday really happen?' " Brees said Monday.

His counterpart probably was thinking the same thing. And now he'll be asked about it until he makes something else memorable happen on the game's greatest stage.

Is it fair? Nope. But try telling that to the 100 million-plus people who tuned in to watch Sunday night.

"You don't take it for granted, these moments," the Saints' Payton said. "You want to slow it down. And for our players, everyone else and coaches, you just want to put it on rewind a little bit. It's special, obviously."

For the Saints, obviously. They'll never get tired of rewinding this one.

Manning and the Colts only wish they could.

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