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The New Orleans Saints provided a blueprint Sunday for the way you win a Super Bowl as an underdog against one of the best quarterbacks in history - something the Carolina Panthers couldn't quite do six years before.
Namely, you take risks. When one fails, you take some more. If you go down, you go down utterly spent.
Before we go any further, answer me this: Can you imagine Panthers coach John Fox calling for an onside kick to open the second half in a big game with his team down 10-6?
If you can, your imagination is better than mine. Fox just doesn't do things like that.
But he should. Every now and then, he should.
The Saints, of course, didn't go down. They upset Indianapolis, 31-17, in Sunday's Super Bowl, and they did it with aggressiveness. They blitzed Peyton Manning frequently, including on the Manning interception that was run back for a touchdown to seal the game.
I think the difference in Sunday's game came down to New Orleans coach Sean Payton, who is a friend and supporter of Fox but who coaches with a boldness unfamiliar to Panthers fans.
See, I still think Indianapolis has a bit more talent than New Orleans. But it doesn't matter, because New Orleans was so much more creative. The Saints had Payton. Indianapolis had Peyton. This time, the coach trumped the player.
Said New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees of the repeated risks that his coach took: "That's the type of team we are. We play with a very aggressive mentality. We play with a lot of confidence. We came to this game knowing we had to play loose and take a chance in order to win, and we did."
Years from now, everyone will remember the onside kick and Tracy Porter's 74-yard TD interception return of Manning. Those plays occurred because of 1) an all-out blitz by the Saints and 2) a big-time gamble by Payton.
The onside kick was my favorite - what a dicey beauty. If Indianapolis recovers that ball, Manning has it at the New Orleans 40 with a four-point lead and a good chance to extend it to 11.
New Orleans already had misfired on one gamble - a fourth-and-goal at the Indianapolis 1 in the second quarter. Payton called a running play and had it come up short.
So what? Here came the second-half onside kick, nicknamed "Ambush" by the Saints.
Odds of it working? "We felt during the week it was more than a 60-70 percent chance," Payton said.
Would you risk so much on a 60-70 percent chance?
If you're an NFL coach, you should. You can win some NFL games by playing conservatively. You can go 8-8. Maybe even 11-5 occasionally.
But I don't think you can win the Super Bowl. Not anymore - not with the league's talent so equally spread out. Fox coaches like Chuck Noll from the 1970s-era Pittsburgh Steelers, which is fine as far as that goes. But teams like those Steelers no longer exist.
So New Orleans recovered the onside kick and scored on the ensuing drive. Ultimately, the Saints won the game with boldness.
This column is not meant as an anti-Fox diatribe. I wrote late this season that Fox - whose team won its final three games to finish 8-8 in 2009 - deserved to coach the Panthers in 2010. Fox will be entering the final year of his current contract this season.
But Fox has never been much of a risk-taker, as evidenced by one of his long-held theories: "A punt is not a bad play." The 2009 Panthers never really got it going until Fox was forced - because of a Jake Delhomme injury - to start backup quarterback Matt Moore.
In the NFL these days, it's riskier now to stand pat if you're truly shooting for the big prize.
The Panthers are listed at 40-1 in the early odds to win the next Super Bowl. That'd be crazy to take those odds, right?
Sure. Just like it's crazy to try an onside kick to open the second half of a Super Bowl.
But sometimes, controlled craziness works. I hope the Panthers try a little more of it in 2010.
The defending Super Bowl champion already plays in their division, after all. New Orleans will be heavily favored to win the NFC South again.
What have the Panthers really got to lose?
