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MIAMI -- For four years, Drew Brees has been relentlessly pursuing redemption. Redemption for himself and redemption for his adopted city.
Sunday evening under one of the biggest spotlights in sport, he found it on both levels.
"Four years ago, who would have thought this could happen?" he said after he had engineered the Saints 31-17 victory in Super Bowl XLIV.
"Eighty-five percent of (New Orleans) was under water. People were evacuating to places all over the country. Most people left not knowing if New Orleans would ever come back, or if the football team would ever come back. I was coming off what might have been a career-ending injury.
"But somehow, together as a team and with the courageous people of New Orleans, we have somehow rebuilt the city, our team and ourselves. We believed and this is the culmination of that belief."
Brees was a huge part of that, but so was Sean Payton, the head coach who was integral to putting this team together with a group of castoffs and misfits who bought into his plan.
"Our head coach is unbelievable," Brees said. "Not only as an offensive guru, a great, aggressive play caller, but as a guy who can inspire all the right things in a player.
"He has made us better players but also better men."
Brees and Peyton Manning had gone back and forth all night but when Brees completed a two-yard TD pass to Jeremy Shockey late in the game, coupled with a successful two-point convert that gave New Orleans a seven-point advantage, he was counting on the defence to get the job done.
"I've seen Peyton come back many times in three minutes or less," Brees said. "But when Tracy (Porter) picked off that ball and ran it back, it all started to become real to me.
"Even now, it hasn't really sunk in yet that we've won, that we're champions. It's been a long road and it's hard to believe we finally made it."
ken.fidlin@sunmedia.ca