Brett Favre lets Saints march on to Super Bowl

From New Orleans — 

Lord, how I want to be in that number.

On a raging Sunday in the bayou, they marched, through 42 years of football misery, through the jagged remains of human tragedy, to a Super Bowl that will surely taste like gumbo and feel like salvation.

In a chilly and deafening building that a few years ago was a symbol of Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans Saints finally came marching in to an NFC championship victory that seemed as much destined as deserved.

“This is for everybody in this city who’s had homes who used to be wet,” Coach Sean Payton shouted after one of the most memorable, meaningful games in NFL playoff history.

At this, 71,276 fans shouted back, again and again, the Superdome transformed from a place of mourning to a cacophony of joy.

For nearly four exhausting hours, the Saints had clearly lost the battle to the Minnesota Vikings.

Yet, buoyed by the thousands chanting and millions more praying, they somehow won the game.

It took several little gifts from the football gods, a huge one from the Football God, an overtime coin toss, and a game-winning kick by a guy who began the season on a drug suspension, but it happened.

Saints 31, Vikings 28, and for the next two weeks, Who Dat is no longer a question, but an answer.

“From the horrors of Hurricane Katrina to the Super Bowl, God has truly graced us.”

The words were spoken in the bowels of the Superdome late Sunday, with horns blaring outside and music thumping inside and Brett Favre hobbling into the arms of his wife.

They were spoken not by game-winning kicker Garrett Hartley, or game-saving defender Tracy Porter, but by the one person who really knows how this was accomplished.

“Following the Saints has been like 40 years in the desert . . . and then there was a flood,” said Sister Mary Andrew, principal of a French Quarter school. “But God has finally led us out.”

If that is the case, then it was Favre who unlocked the door.

How does it happen that a team is outgained, 475 yards to 257, and is futilely trying to hold off a Hall of Fame quarterback deep in its territory in the final seconds of a tie game, and still wins?

Because for all his greatness, Favre is still Favre, and instead of just running the ball a few open yards into field-goal range and then falling with 19 seconds remaining, he insisted on being a hero, throwing a pass across his body into traffic.

Porter picked off the pass to send the game into overtime. From there, destiny required a failed coin-toss call by the Vikings, a dropped interception by Viking Ben Leber, two bad Vikings penalties, a 10-play Saints drive, and a 40-yard Hartley field goal.

Yeah, all that. In about 10 minutes. Multiply that by an entire evening and you have a classic.

“The Saints are about entertainment,” linebacker Scott Fujita said. “And today you had it all, the highs, the lows, everything.”

In the end, the highs rang through the building like Mardi Gras on steroids, fans screaming and hugging and dancing and refusing to leave.

Through the confetti of those highs, you could see the lows of a 40-year-old man hobbling off the field with his head in jersey.

That would be Favre, who went to Minnesota this season with the intention of playing in one more Super Bowl before the end of his career, and was ultimately flattened in the effort.

“I don’t even know where to begin,” he said at the outset of his news conference, his throat thick and his face scratched.

He could begin with how he was punished as never before, yet he hung in there to throw for 310 yards and a touchdown.

He could continue with how he was helped off the field late in the third quarter after his ankle was crunched between two tacklers, how he lay on a sideline table with his hands on his helmet, how his career should have ended that moment.

“We thought he was done, he was checked out, we had finished him,” defensive end Will Smith said. “We were even game planning for their next quarterback . . . then he hobbles back into the game. We were like, whoa, he’s back?”

They weren’t the only ones stunned. Fueled by Favre’s return, the Vikings continued to dominate the Saints but ultimately could not overcome their three lost fumbles and Favre’s final interception.

In case it looked familiar, yes, it was the same type of silly pass that cost the Packers the NFC championship two seasons ago in overtime against the New York Giants.

“I probably should have ran it,” Favre said of his losing play. “I don’t know how many yards we needed for a field goal, but I knew we needed some.”

He didn’t know how many yards because he was so beat up. The Vikings earlier suffered a damaging 12-player penalty on that last drive, and Favre didn’t know anything about that, either.

“To be honest with you, I don’t know who should have been in or not,” he said.

As Favre limped slowly down the hall to the interview room, some Saints employees cheered him, while another Saints fan hurled ice and punches at an NFL official trying to guide him.

It was that kind of night.

“I wonder if I can hold up, especially after a day like today, physically and mentally,” Favre said.

At the other end of the Superdome tunnel, the Saints were swaggering around after holding up an entire town.

“To be able to represent a city that looks to us as a beacon of hope is awesome,” Fujita said. “This is a monumental day.”

Their quarterback, Drew Brees, was hassled and inconsistent. Their running attack was spotty. They converted only three third downs.

But they scored one touchdown after a 61-yard kickoff return by Courtney Roby. They scored one after a Percy Harvin fumble deep in Vikings territory. They stopped the Vikings on two other fumbles at the Saints’ five- and 10-yard lines.

After years of being plagued by mistakes, the Saints finally watched somebody else make them, and celebrated with each blunder, and who can blame them?

In the end of an exhilarating Sunday night, it seems the Saints deserved to be running through the confetti and smoke to the Superdome stands like little kids looking for their parents, posing and waving and chanting, a town and a team joined.

bill.plaschke@latimes.com

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