NFL Scores NFC Championship: New Orleans Saints Reach First Super Bowl in Franchise History with OT Win Over Minnesota Vikings

The New Orleans Saints are heading to the Super Bowl for the first time in franchise history after a dramatic overtime thriller against the Minnesota Vikings ended on a 40-yard field goal from Garrett Hartley for a 31-28 victory.

Knowing that they would need to force the Vikings to make mistakes the Saints defense forced five turnovers, the last being a costly interception from the hand of Brett Favre that erased Minnesota’s shot at winning the game in regulation.

Ignoring the turnovers, it was clearly a game dominated by the Vikings as they outgained the Saints 475-257, had 16 more first downs, were 7-12 on third down conversions and had the ball nearly ten more minutes. Unfortunately for the Vikings they couldn’t ignore the turnovers and when it came to capitalizing on mistakes it was clearly New Orleans who knew what they were doing.

The Saints turned the ball over just once on a Reggie Bush fumble but the Vikings, sitting inside the Red Zone, turned the ball right back over when Favre and Adrian Peterson couldn’t get the hand-off right. Peterson fumbled twice in the game and while he finished with three touchdown runs it will be his turnovers that sit with him over the long offseason.

That’s not something the Saints will have to worry about as they prepare for the Indianapolis Colts in the Super Bowl on February 7. They can certainly thank Drew Brees for their ticket to Miami as he tossed three touchdowns and while he was just 17/31 and didn’t have a receiver total more than 39 yards in the game he didn’t try to force any passes and allowed his defense to dictate field position.

That formula worked long enough to get the game into overtime and when the Saints won the coin toss and elected to receive it was just a matter of time before they found themselves in Hartley’s range. That came after a controversial pass interference call that was made despite the ball looking to be uncatchable.

Like they have all year the Saints wouldn’t waste the opportunity as Hartley came on and split the uprights with a perfect kick.

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