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When the New Orleans Saints faced the Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl 44, they were at a crossroads at halftime. Searching for a spark after a frustrating first 30 minutes of action, Saints coach Sean Payton felt compelled to do something that was unprecedentedly bold, gutsy, and a very, very big deal.
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00:00The New Orleans Saints, led by coach Sean Payton, were navigating uncharted territory.
00:05As underdogs playing in their first-ever Super Bowl, they were hanging tough at halftime,
00:10trailing by four to the mighty Indianapolis Colts.
00:13Set to kick off to start the second half, they presumably had designs on making a defensive
00:18stop to get the ball back in the hands of their star quarterback to try and take the
00:22lead.
00:22As rookie Thomas Morstead readied to strike the football deep, something funny happened.
00:28He didn't.
00:30Instead, an all-time gamble of an onside kick from out of left field led to chaos, confusion,
00:36and for the team that ultimately emerged with the ball, a coronation.
00:41Sean Payton's decision in Super Bowl XLIV to call for a surprise onside kick was a big deal.
00:49Quick detour to let you know Secret Base is now on Patreon.
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01:02But for now, back to this one.
01:07You can forgive the Saints for acting unconventionally here, because there wasn't
01:11anything less conventional than their presence in the NFL's biggest game.
01:15Throughout their first 39 years of an existence that started in 1967, they were by far the league's
01:22most dreadful team.
01:24They didn't make the playoffs in any of their first 20 seasons, and they didn't win their
01:29first playoff game until season 34, which remained their lone such win up through a 2005
01:34season that represented rock bottom.
01:37Hurricane Katrina devastated the region, forcing the Saints to leave New Orleans in a nomadic year with no
01:43stable home in a disastrous 3-13 campaign.
01:48Then, needing a new head coach before season 40 in 06, they pried loose from Dallas hot-shot
01:54offensive mind Sean Payton to rebuild the team into something the city could rally around.
01:59When Nick Saban's Miami Dolphins failed to reel in free agent quarterback Drew Brees due to concerns
02:04over his surgically repaired shoulder, Payton pounced, landing his man he'd be tied to at the hip.
02:10The city pinned their hopes on this duo spearheading the reconstruction of the football team,
02:15surely a slow, methodical process given the depths to which they'd sunk.
02:20Only someone forgot to tell him it needed to take a while.
02:24In year one together, fireworks.
02:27Ten wins, a division title, their first ever postseason bye, and their first ever appearance
02:33in a conference championship game.
02:35In year four, as the stewards of the franchise once 09 rolled around,
02:39Payton and Brees guided the Saints to wins in each of their first 13 games,
02:44just the fifth team of the Super Bowl era to pull that off.
02:48Number six joined the club about 17 minutes later in Indy.
02:52Unsurprisingly, those Colts cruised their way in a ho-hum manner with no controversy to capture
02:57the AFC title and a berth in Super Bowl 44.
03:01The Saints also ultimately won the NFC title, in slightly less ho-hum, slightly more controversial
03:07fashion, to set up their clash with a team whose two most prominent players,
03:12quarterback Payton Manning and wide-out Reggie Wayne, hailed from New Orleans.
03:17Installed as five-point underdogs, the Saints got off to a flat start,
03:21and, after a Pierre Garcon touchdown, trailed 10-zip after the first quarter.
03:26They had a chance to tie the game late in the second quarter, but got stonewalled at the goal line
03:31on
03:31third down, and again on fourth, to emerge with no points.
03:37Down by four at the half, and with that empty-handed trip upon reaching the precipice,
03:42perhaps planting a seed as to how to steal that possession back,
03:45Payton spent the 35-minute intermission deliberating.
03:49His team needed some sort of spark with a stagnant offense that had yet to find the end zone.
03:55Set to kick off coming out of the locker room, he had at his disposal two options.
04:00Option one, kick it deep, conceding possession to the Colts where it could be expected they'd
04:05start their ensuing drive at around their own 20-yard line or slightly beyond.
04:10To get in field goal range for 42-year-old kicker Matt Stover, Indy would probably need
04:15to reach the plus 30-yard line, which would ostensibly be about 50 yards away.
04:20To score a touchdown, they'd need to drive about 80 yards.
04:23This is the conventional option chosen with overwhelming frequency.
04:28Option two, stun the world and unleash a surprise onside kick which entails kicking
04:34the ball 10 yards and hoping to recover it themselves.
04:37This was an option generally deployed on a desperation basis when trailing late in a game,
04:42with the onside intentions telegraphed by the kicking team's personnel and alignment.
04:47It was executed on a surprise basis approximately 10 times per NFL season,
04:52representing less than one-half of 1% of all NFL kickoffs.
04:57If Payton wants to pull an extra possession out of his orifice, this option provides such a potential high
05:03reward but also carries with it enormous risk.
05:07An onside kick from their own 30-yard line would mean hoping for a recovery around their own 40.
05:12There's some built-in wiggle room depending on the exact time period analyzed in a sample
05:17and, despite no ambiguity in this instance, the exact definition of the word surprise.
05:23But generally speaking, they produced about a 40-45% success rate.
05:28In the nearly 60% chance of failure, Payton would be handing Payton the ball already on the outskirts
05:34of field goal range needing only about 40 yards for a touchdown that had re-established their two-score lead.
05:40It would also be an unprecedented maneuver within Super Bowl history.
05:44Never before had an onside kick been attempted before the fourth quarter in any of its first 43 additions.
05:51Midway through halftime, a confident Payton boldly finalized his decision to his entire team.
06:06The man upon whom all New Orleans' hopes and dreams lie to execute the ambush was a rookie,
06:12Thomas Morstead, who'd never in his entire life attempted an onside kick.
06:18To say he was apprehensive would qualify as the understatement of the year.
06:22However, if ever an NFL player not named Mark Schlereth were pissing down his leg,
06:27it was Thomas Morstead in the visitors' locker room of Sun Life Stadium at halftime of the 44th Super Bowl.
06:33But Payton, who'd actually attempted a surprise onside kick in all three of his prior seasons leading the Saints,
06:39had some fascinating first-hand experience in this department.
06:43Back in his 06 Made in Voyage campaign, he was victimized in the third quarter by Niner kicker Joe
06:49Nedney's immaculate execution of such a kick.
06:53Perhaps inspired by that, the very next week Payton returned to his stomping grounds from the
06:58previous three years and unleashed what I'd argue is the most diabolical onside kick call in NFL history
07:04against his mentor Bill Parcells.
07:06With the Saints nursing an 18-point lead with 20 minutes left, Payton went for the jugular and got it.
07:14Sure, the 12-22-63 Chargers kicked onside with a 38-point lead, but at least that hysterical
07:22pettiness occurred when the game was ending regardless after that kickoff.
07:26Two others are close.
07:28John Gruden's 07 Bucks whipped out a surprise onside, up 21 against the Falcons in Atlanta's
07:34very first game following the ignominious midseason departure of internationally recognized coward Bobby
07:41Petrino. And Mike Martz's 01 Rams were boat racing the Jets by 24 when he called for such a third
07:48quarter surprise. But at least Gruden and Martz ran the ball a few times and could plausibly claim
07:54that the potential to drain some clock was part of their calculus. No such plausibility existed for
08:00Payton in Irving, Texas, who, in the wake of the successful recovery, dialed up passes on the first,
08:09second, third, and fourth and final play of the subsequent drive.
08:17He just really, really wanted to be up 25 toward the end of the third quarter,
08:23which we all know is an insurmountable advantage. But because of the score, that wasn't a very
08:28consequential decision and it didn't really matter if they failed. The more relevant comparisons that
08:33involved real risk for Payton occurred in the next couple years. 2007's surprise onside that Payton
08:39called occurred against the Jags and was also successful in forming the inspiration for Ambush.
08:46And finally, in 08, he tried to catch the Vikings sleeping, but that one backfired.
08:51So carrying that background in his past of being as willing as anyone to gamble on a surprise onside,
08:57and having just made his decision to add another notch to that belt in executing one of the foremost dice
09:02rolls ever seen on this sort of stage, Payton's terrified rookie approached the ball and struck
09:08it well, but the knuckleball headed straight toward the sure hands of Indy's Hank Basket.
09:13But Basket's a wide receiver, which sort of neutered much of the upside of the surprise onside,
09:18since you're hoping the surprise means it'd be like a D-tackle or a linebacker or something
09:23trying to corral the ball. But it somehow eluded Hank's Basket in squirting loose,
09:29setting off a massive scrum. Safety Chris Reese managed to pounce on the ball,
09:34but it was on the cusp of slipping away between his legs with Basket's second effort on the verge
09:39of redeeming himself. That's when linebacker Jonathan Casillas Mufasa'd his way into the picture,
09:46launching himself into Basket to free up Reese from regaining control of the ball. Pure mayhem ensues
09:52extensively beyond that, with god knows what kind of nastiness going on in the bowels of the pileup amid the
09:58frenzied effort to secure possession. After what seemed like an eternity, the officials finally
10:04had it up to here. You get out of here! You get out of here! You get out of here!
10:09Peyton too reached his wits end. Hey! We got the ball! Referee Scott Green disagreed,
10:19prompting a mystified Reese to voice his exasperation. And I'm like what are you talking
10:24about? I have the ball right here. There's no reason to say blue ball. Like two toddlers arguing over which
10:31toy to play with at recess, Peyton dug in. White ball! White ball! And with that, Green finally came around.
10:40White ball! To finally bring an end to the 63-second scrum.
10:47Of course, even winning the monumental gamble still wouldn't pay any dividends if the Saints
10:52couldn't then go marching in for points. Breeze quickly made sure it wouldn't all be for naught,
10:58crisply matriculating his team down the field and completing all five of his passes capped by a 16-yard
11:04screen to Pierre Thomas, who weaved his way to Peter to grab the lead. So yes, after a Pierre produced
11:11the game's first huge play, and a Thomas produced the game's second huge play, a Pierre Thomas produced
11:18the game's third huge play. Thanks to those seven points stemming from the onside kick, the Saints led
11:23by exactly that amount with five minutes and change left in the game, compelling Indy to abandon the run
11:29and become one-dimensional and predictable. That led to a third and five where boundary corner Tracy
11:35Porter and slot corner Malcolm Jenkins confuse Manning by passing off a couple Colts wideouts to each
11:40other, and boom! Porter grabs the gift and 74 yards later he's in the end zone, having clinched for his
11:47team their very first ever Vince Lombardi trophy. Capitalizing on opportunity is the prevalent theme
11:54here. The Saints had to capitalize on the opportunity to recover the onside kick and get points, as the
12:00game's complexion would have been completely different if either Indy had recovered or even if
12:04New Orleans had simply kicked it deep. But bigger picture, the Saints also had to capitalize on this
12:11opportunity of playing in a Super Bowl. Because it isn't even just that they never made it in any of
12:16their
12:16previous 42 years of existence before 09 while only once even reaching the NFC Championship game.
12:22The team and their fans didn't know it at the time, but across their 16 seasons and counting following
12:2809, they likewise won't reach a Super Bowl and only once get as far as an NFC title game while
12:34experiencing their fair share of excruciating heartbreak. So 2009 was it. Super Bowl 44 was their
12:42one shot. And thanks to one gutsy onside kick, they pulled it off. Ballsiness that even earned
12:49presidential admiration a few months later. I make some tough decisions every day, but I never decided
12:55on an onside kick in the second half of the Super Bowl. Yeah, I'm glad that thing went alright.
13:04If it hadn't gone alright, the Saints would quite possibly enter their 60th season in franchise history
13:10with an empty trophy case. For organizational pillars like Peyton and Breeze, who both remained
13:16in New Orleans together for more than a decade after Super Bowl 44, we'll never know whether or not they
13:22would have lasted there as long as they did without the championship. Maybe without it, Breeze would have
13:27gotten antsy and left the Big Easy within the next few years in pursuit of a ring. And or maybe
13:33their
13:3389 year old owner would have grown impatient with Peyton after his third consecutive losing season in 2016
13:39and made a coaching change. But the one thing that can be said with absolute certainty is without that
13:45Super Bowl title, they wouldn't have their legacies unassailably cemented. Instead, in the wake of an
13:52onside kick that galvanized the team, they do. Suffice it to say, Sean Payton's decision and his team's
13:59execution of it was quite the big deal.
14:11Thanks for watching this episode of Big Deal and don't forget to like and subscribe to our YouTube
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