As the Saints revel in their Super Bowl victory, I've heard Vikings fans and players say, "What if?", thinking our team would've taken out the Colts too, but I'm not so sure.
I assumed that the underdog Saints would get picked apart by Mastermind Manning, one of the most dangerous quarterbacks of all time. Then again, I also assumed the Saints would play a conventional football game. But that would have been a risky strategy.
Saints coach Sean Payton knew that he'd have to use the element of surprise to overcome the odds. So he went for a 4th and goal. He started the second half with an onside kick. He challenged the call on a two-point conversion. You could argue that Tracy Porter's interception to seal the game was part of that mentality.
There was real a sense of asymmetry watching two competing styles of play. The Saints didn't follow convention. The bewildered Colts were on their heels and made costly errors.
True, it took guts to play the way the Saints did, but it turns out it was their safest route to victory. The New York Times conducted a win probability analysis of the Saints' seemingly risky behavior and found that they made statistically sound decisions.
Would the Vikings have done the same?
