In typical fashion, Saints overcome adversity in win

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NEW ORLEANS -- The pitch to Reggie Bush slipped through his fingers and fell to the turf, and for a brief, sobering moment, that looked like all she wrote for the Saints. The triumphant return to the Crescent City. The unlikely march into the NFL postseason. The pipe dreams of a Super Bowl. All gone in a butter-fingered second.

These, though, are the Saints, remember. The Saints feed off adversity, then scarf down a bowl of gumbo on the side. Nobody in the NFL overcomes like the Saints overcome. That's what they do.

And so it was, on a Saturday evening in their resurrected Superdome home, the Saints scrapped their way back and won -- again -- making a huge defensive stand at the end of their NFC divisional game to beat the Eagles, 27-24, and move within a step of their first Super Bowl.

Nothing about this was easy. This game was, at times, downright hairy for the home team that everybody roots for.

In short, it was exactly the kind of situation in which the Saints thrive.

"You just got to be determined not to fail," said Bush's backfield running mate, the often unheralded but star-of-this-one, Deuce McAllister. "It's a phenomenal feeling."

To win this game was undoubtedly sweet for the Saints and their city, but this was not pretty. It was a game of sweat and big plays and killer hits. The Superdome grew as loud at times Saturday as anyone in these parts has ever heard it. And when Bush dropped that pitch-out late in the game, you could hear the gasps from the crowd of better than 70,000.

The evening started with an almost predictable jolt when, on the second play of the game, Bush slipped out of the backfield, ran under a short pass from quarterback Drew Brees -- and immediately was leveled from a hit by Philadelphia cornerback Sheldon Brown that left the Saints' rookie reeling. Bush got up, dropped to a knee and, after several minutes, had to be escorted off the field.

"I couldn't breathe. I wasn't thinking about nothing but breathing. That was about it," Bush said afterward. "They knocked me down. But I got right back up."

And so the fight was on. The Saints were held to a couple of early field goals. The Eagles came back with a couple of huge plays, including a 75-yard touchdown pass from elusive quarterback Jeff Garcia to former Saints receiver Donte Stallworth and, starting the third quarter, a 62-yard run from all-purpose back Brian Westbrook that put the visitors ahead 21-13.

But then McAllister, playing in the first postseason game of his six-year career, took over. After Westbrook's 62-yard run, McAllister finished off a 63-yard drive with a brutally beautiful five-yard touchdown run in which he was hit at the five, the three and then bulled his way through a flock of Eagles for the score. On the bottom of the pile, you could actually see Eagles linebacker Jeremiah Trotter behind pulled, backward, toward the goal line.

"I'm a big guy," McAllister explained. "You get 230 pounds running, plus a fullback ..."

Deuce McAllister's two second-half touchdowns put the Saints ahead for good. John David Mercer/US PRESSWIRE

As impressive as that was, though, McAllister's ensuing score was even better. On first-and-10 from the Eagles 11 on the next drive, McAllister took a swing pass from Brees on the left side of the line, dipped a shoulder to the inside to fake out Trotter, then breezed into the end zone behind a block from wide receiver Terrance Copper. That gave the Saints a 27-21 lead.

Being the Saints, though, they had to make things tight to make it right. The Eagles marched downfield on the next drive and had a third-and-one on the Saints 4, only to be saved by linebacker Scott Fujita, who sacked Garcia and forced the Eagles to settle for a field goal.

Then, after an exchange of punts, came Bush's fumble -- "Maybe I was thinking about it too much, I don't know," he said -- the only turnover of the game. The Eagles recovered on the Philly 44.

As it turns out, the Saints had the Eagles just where they wanted them. The Saints' defense, led by Fujita again, kept the pressure on the Eagles, who elected to punt after a false start penalty -- maybe due to the roaring crowd -- put them in a fourth-and-15.

With McAllister running hard -- he gained 143 yards on 21 carries -- the Saints were able to run out the clock.

From here, it's really not that difficult to see the Saints, 3-13 last season, making it to the Super Bowl. Beyond destiny and karma and all that, the Saints boast the top-ranked offense in the league. And the defense stood solid enough against the No. 2 offense in the league, to impress anybody who bothered to notice.

Here, in a city still staggering 16 months after Katrina blew through, a trip to the Super Bowl would be proof again that New Orleans, and its team, can be knocked down but not knocked out.

"I've been thinking about this opportunity since I was 8 years old," Fujita said. "And here I am. We have to take advantage of it."

At this point, nobody's about to count out the Saints.