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Minnesota punter Chris Kluwe isn’t the only member of the Vikings to say that New Orleans linebacker Jonathan Vilma should be permanently banned by the NFL for his role in the Saints’ bounty program.

NFC North colleague Kevin Seifert reports Minnesota center John Sullivan agreed with Kluwe on Vilma and also said former Saints Darren Sharper and defensive end Bobby McCray also should receiver harsh penalties. Sullivan was a first-year starter in the 2009 season, when the Vikings played the Saints in the NFC Championship Game. In its report announcing the Saints’ punishment, the league said Minnesota quarterback Brett Favre was a specific target of New Orleans defenders in that game.

"If you want to offer money to knock somebody out of a game on a clean hit, fine," Sullivan said. "But the guys that went after it in the wrong way, that's the exact opposite of sportsmanship. It's just disgusting. To think that you're going to take money to hit someone illegally and hurt them out of the game, I can't even fathom that somebody would do that."

Sullivan talked about McCray’s hit on Favre after a second-quarter handoff and implied that at least one of Sharper’s hits on Favre was illegal.

"I really think if you go back and look at that game, anybody who took a shot at Brett illegally and you can see with the intention of trying to injury him [should be banned]," Sullivan said. "And the big two that come to mind are Sharper and Bobby McCray. They've got to do something to those guys too, whether it's no Hall of Fame [or] you're not allowed to be associated with the NFL anymore. I have a hard time talking about it. It just disgusts me that you would go out there and try to hurt somebody and take away their livelihood. It' s just gross."

Sullivan also questioned the suspension of New Orleans general manager Mickey Loomis for the first eight games of the season. Loomis will be allowed to continue in his job throughout the offseason, including training camp and most of the preseason. Loomis’ suspension will start when NFL rosters are cut down to 53 players just before the start of the regular season.

"Seems like it would be more effective as a punishment during the draft," Sullivan said.

NEW ORLEANS -- The Saints are focused solely on their “Monday Night Football’’ game with the Atlanta Falcons right now. A victory will give them the NFC South title.

But fans and media have been getting ahead of the game and comparing the Saints to the Green Bay Packers and New Orleans’ quarterback Drew Brees to Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers. There’s also been a fair amount of debate about which of those quarterbacks should win the Most Valuable Player award.

Well, the looking down the road continues. In this Insider post, Chris Sprow goes into great detail about how well Brees has played in the past six games. He says that if Brees continues playing the way he has been, the Saints can beat the Packers, even if it’s in the NFC Championship Game in Lambeau Field.

He then points to several other reasons why the Saints might be better than the Packers, including the New Orleans defense and the continued emergence of Jimmy Graham.

If the season ended today, the New Orleans Saints would be the No. 3 seed in the NFC playoffs.

They’d host a first-round game against the No. 6 Chicago Bears. They might even be able to get a home game against Detroit or Dallas in the second round. But the Saints also would have to go on the road if they ended up playing either Green Bay or San Francisco in the NFC Championship Game.

The Saints would be the NFC South’s only playoff representative at the moment. But the Atlanta Falcons are 6-4 and only a game behind the Saints. That means the Falcons are very much in the playoff picture.

That picture is starting to become clearer. With six weeks left in the regular season, it’s not too early to start talking playoffs. It’s not too early to start envisioning all of the different scenarios.

With that in mind, let me recommend that you take a trip over to ESPN’s Playoff Machine. Go over there and you can punch in any scenario you want and the machine will sort things out for you.

You might want to save the link because the Playoff Machine could be an even more valuable tool as the season goes on.

What key event significantly changed the fortunes of the Saints -- for better or worse? Give us your take and we’ll give you our definitive moment on May 25.

These events could be positives or negatives. In the case of the Saints, I elected to just stick with the positives because there have been a lot recently. This long-suffering franchise has done all sorts of good things since the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

There have been two trips to the NFC Championship Game, a Super Bowl title and a future that still looks very bright, and most of your choices are from the modern era. You can trace all that's right with the Saints these days back to 2006, when coach Sean Payton and quarterback Drew Brees, who supposedly had a shoulder injury so bad he might not play again, arrived. For those with longer memories, I even included the arrival of Jim Mora as coach in 1986. That move triggered the first real surge of competitiveness as the "Dome Patrol'' and Bobby Hebert showed it was possible to win in New Orleans.

Prior to that, the highlights I left out were Tom Dempsey’s 63-yard field goal and the days of Archie Manning running for his life, but also throwing some nice passes. Beyond that, there wasn’t much else.

If you vote Other, give us your suggestion in the comments area below.

What key event significantly changed the fortunes of the Panthers -- for better or worse? Give us your take and we’ll give you our definitive moment on May 25.

The Carolina Panthers are the newest team in the NFC South, coming into the league as an expansion team in 1995. But this team already has seen just about as many highs and lows as any team in the division.

You could even make a case that no team has gone lower. The Panthers were 2-14 last season, 1-15 under George Seifert in 2001 and they went through some tragic circumstances early on with first-round draft picks Rae Carruth and Kerry Collins.

But the high points have been there too. Just two seasons removed from the 1-15 disaster, coach John Fox had the Panthers in the Super Bowl. Quick turnarounds were nothing new to Carolina. The expansion Panthers struggled a bit early in their first season, started showing improvement and were in the NFC Championship Game in only their second year in the league.

Success never has lasted long for the Panthers, though. But there’s room for that to change with new coach Ron Rivera and quarterback Cam Newton coming to town.

If you vote Other, give us your suggestion in the comments area below.

What key event significantly changed the fortunes of the Buccaneers – for better or worse? Give us your take and we’ll give you our definitive moment on May 25.

Coming into the NFL as an expansion team in 1976, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers lost a ridiculous number of games in very quick fashion. There was a brief flash after coach John McKay rode quarterback Doug Williams and defensive end Lee Roy Selmon all the way to the NFC Championship Game in the 1979 season. A few years later, Williams was gone after a salary dispute and the Bucs were maybe even worse than before.

Following Williams’ departure, they went through more than a decade of being the NFL’s biggest embarrassment. Former owner Hugh Culverhouse led the team through one bumbling step after another.

Things didn’t start to change until the Glazer family bought the team, Tony Dungy was hired as coach and Raymond James Stadium opened. Even then, the Bucs were good, but not quite good enough. That led to Dungy’s demise and the arrival of coach Jon Gruden, who won a Super Bowl in his first season. The Bucs haven’t won big since, but they seem to be a franchise on the rise with coach Raheem Morris and quarterback Josh Freeman.

If you vote Other, give us your suggestion in the comments area below.

If you go strictly by what was at stake and adjust the curve for the time frame, the last big game Matt Ryan won was the Champs Sports Bowl.

On Dec. 28, 2007, he threw three touchdown passes, leading Boston College to a victory against Michigan State. It was Ryan’s final college game. It also was his last postseason victory.

Ryan gets another chance at the postseason Saturday night when the Atlanta Falcons play host to the Green Bay Packers in the Georgia Dome in the divisional round of the NFC playoffs. Ryan beat the Packers with a last-minute drive to set up a field goal in a regular-season game back in late November. You can make a case that qualifies as a big game. You can argue that any number of the 13 victories Ryan led the Falcons to this season would fall into the category of a big win.

Go ahead and point to some of his victories as a rookie or in 2009 and call them big wins. You might be right. Ryan’s done a lot of great things in his three-year career.

But the one thing he hasn’t done is win in the postseason. He’s had only one chance. That came at the end of his rookie season when the Falcons lost to Arizona. Ryan didn’t have a bad game that day. The Cardinals were at home and simply the better team, on their way to the Super Bowl.

Now, comes Ryan’s next chance, and this is about much more than earning a trip to the NFC Championship Game. It’s about Ryan taking the next career step.

Throw his name into a sentence with the phrase “elite quarterbacks’’ and you’re going to elicit strong reaction both ways. When ESPN’s John Clayton called Ryan an elite quarterback during the regular season, my mailbag filled up with emotional replies. Some agreed and some passionately disputed that claim.

Well, now is Ryan’s chance to start ending that argument. But it’s just a step. Remember, Peyton Manning “couldn’t win the big one’’ until he finally won a Super Bowl, and now the knock is “he’s only won one Super Bowl.’’ Even Dan Marino still gets criticized for never winning a Super Bowl.

A victory against Green Bay would do a lot to silence some Ryan critics and help raise his stature. Although the questions about him and winning big games are out there, it’s kind of amazing that Ryan hasn’t had to field them this week.

It’s been a strange time in Atlanta. The city and the region have been overwhelmed by a rare winter storm. The Falcons have been forced to practice indoors in the building known as “The Barn’’ at their Flowery Branch, Ga., facility. Some players and coaches have been staying at the facility and others have been carpooling to get there safely.

When Ryan met with the media Tuesday, the group was limited because national reporters couldn’t fly into Atlanta. Some local reporters were unable to make the trek to Flowery Branch. In a bit of irony, the man known as “Matty Ice’’ spent most of his time talking about the snow and ice.

“It was slow coming in,’’ Ryan said. “I don’t think it’s affected my preparation at all. You’ve got to wake up a few minutes earlier and allow for a little extra travel time.’’

This past Sunday night, as soon as it was clear the Falcons would play host to the Packers, Ryan grabbed a notebook and started getting ready for Green Bay.

“Yeah, I’m kind of old school, so it’s not on a computer or anything like that,’’ Ryan said. “It’s just paper and pencil, which is real old school. It’s just taking notes from that week of preparation [for Green Bay in the regular season], what we thought during the week going into it, our previous game plan and some notes from after the game of what we saw, checks and stuff like that, that we heard out there. That said, they’ll probably change some things, just like we will.’’

In that previous meeting, Ryan was near flawless. He completed 24 of 28 passes for 197 yards and a touchdown. Precise numbers, but hardly prolific.

“That’s the knock on their offense,’’ Scouts Inc.’s Matt Williamson said. “They’re a balanced offense, probably even a run-first offense, so [Ryan] isn’t going to get the chance to put up the really big numbers. They’re always going to try to establish Michael Turner and the running game. They do have Roddy White and he’s a dangerous receiver. But nobody’s afraid of [receiver] Michael Jenkins, and they’re probably less afraid of [tight end Tony Gonzalez] because those guys don’t stretch the field and they don’t make anything happen after the catch. They’re a well-coached and tough group, but I don’t trust the Falcons to score a lot of points.’’

There, that’s the other consistent knock on Ryan. Even in a season in which he established new career highs for passing yards (3,705) and touchdowns (28), he still is viewed as something of a game manager in Atlanta’s ball-control offense.

“I think it will be important for us to run the ball effectively,’’ Ryan said. “[Turner] did a great job running the football the last time we played and our offensive line did a great job. I expect them to do a couple things differently against our run scheme. We’ll try to figure out what that is and try to adjust to that pretty quick. It doesn’t change for us. We like to be pretty balanced. We try to run the football effectively and throw the football, and then figure out through the course of the game whatever we need to do to win it.’’

That’s the bottom line here. To take the next step in his recognition evolution, Ryan doesn’t need a 400-yard passing game, because Atlanta’s offensive system doesn’t really allow for it. What he needs to start silencing the remaining doubters is a postseason win.

There has been a lot of talk in the Carolina media about how fans will respond to coach John Fox in what will be his final home game as coach of the Panthers. Newspapers, radio stations and websites are running polls and asking fans if they’ll boo or cheer Fox.

We’ve written tons all year on how things have deteriorated to this point, and we’ll probably do it some more because the Panthers have two more games after Sunday’s game with Arizona. We’ll probably get into Fox’s fall even more when he officially takes the fall.

But let’s just stay in the moment here. When I looked around and saw those polls, I asked myself what I would do if I were a Carolina fan sitting in Bank of America Stadium when Fox’s name is announced or his face is shown on the video screen.

It didn’t take me long to come up with my answer. I definitely would cheer for Fox. I’m not talking a two-minute standing ovation or chanting his name throughout the game. But a few claps and some genuine warmth are warranted. In fact, I think it’s the least Carolina fans can do for Fox.

Things are ending badly and Fox is definitely not without fault in all this mess. But the reason I’d clap for Fox is simple: I’m not looking at how things are ending. I’m looking at the total body of work.

Fox had a pretty nice run in Carolina. He’s not the best coach in NFL history. But he is the best coach in Carolina history – by far – and that alone should have earned Fox some respect from fans.

Yes, the guy could frustrate the heck out of you. His offense was maddeningly conservative. His reluctance to say much of anything in front of cameras or recorders was beyond frustrating, because you know there’s a very gregarious guy behind his public front.

But Fox was consistent from start to finish and, although that’s part of the reason for his downfall, it’s also part of the reason Fox had a nine-season run in Carolina. If you last nine seasons in any one place in the NFL, you’re doing something right.

Fox did plenty of things right at various times. He took the 2003 Panthers all the way to the Super Bowl, two seasons after George Seifert’s 1-15 mess. Fox might have had his best coaching season in 2005. It seemed like Carolina had about 12 running backs get hurt and Fox and his staff still coached the heck out of that team all the way to the NFC Championship Game.

Those were the good times and you already know about the bad. Through it all, Fox was consistent – at times, too consistent. But, overall, consistency isn’t a bad trait to have in a coach or a person.

Fox wasn’t one of those guys who is up one minute or down the next. He was a pro throughout, and that’s why I think he deserves a cheer.

I’ll also share one little behind-the-scenes story with you that might help show you that Fox is much more human and sensitive than he lets on. Toward the end of the 2007 season, which wasn’t a banner campaign for Fox as the Panthers limped through a season playing the likes of David Carr and Vinny Testaverde, I had accepted an offer to come to ESPN.com soon after I finished covering that season for The Charlotte Observer.

On the day I told Carolina public relations director Charlie Dayton and general manager Marty Hurney that I would be leaving, I was standing in the locker room a bit later. Fox, who rarely comes into the locker room during the media session and certainly had more important things on his mind, suddenly came bouncing in, smiling and calling my name. He congratulated me and thanked me for my time and efforts covering the Panthers. It meant a lot.

That’s why, if I could be a fan in Bank of America Stadium on Sunday, there is no question I would cheer for Fox.

MIAMI –- Mardi Gras can start early on Bourbon Street.

The New Orleans Saints have won the Super Bowl for the first time in franchise history. Second-year cornerback Tracy Porter had a huge interception return for a touchdown in the fourth quarter Sunday night as the Saints defeated the Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLIV at Sun Life Stadium.

Porter’s interception gave the Saints a 31-17 lead with 3:05 remaining. Porter jumped a route and picked off a pass by New Orleans native Peyton Manning that was intended for Reggie Wayne.

That gave the Saints a lead that was too big for even Manning to overcome.

The victory not only gave New Orleans its first championship in any major sport, but also validated Sean Payton and Drew Brees. The victory gives Payton a Super Bowl title and a trip to another NFC Championship Game in his first four seasons. That should move him into the league’s list of elite coaches.

Even more so, the victory clearly puts Brees at the top of his field. He had been mentioned with Manning and New England’s Tom Brady as one of the top quarterbacks in recent years. But the argument against Brees always was that he lacked a Super Bowl ring.

That argument is over because Brees now will have a Super Bowl ring and the city of New Orleans and the Gulf region, which was so crushed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, has something to celebrate.

No need to wait for Mardi Gras.

I'm heading to do interviews. Will be back with lots more in a bit.

Sunday night’s NFC Championship Game was historic for New Orleans in more ways than one. Aside from being the first championship game in the city and the Saints clinching their first Super Bowl berth, it marked the most-watched postseason in local market.

According to Neilsen Media Research, New Orleans had a 63.2/82 last night, the highest local rating ever for a postseason NFL game and beating the home market rating of every team that ever has played in a Super Bowl. The audience in New Orleans peaked at 67.4/86 at 10:15 p.m. as Garrett Hartley made the game-winning field goal.

Minneapolis posted a 58.7/80, which is the third-best ever for a local rating, trailing only New Orleans for the same game and Milwaukee in the 1997 NFC Championship Game.

Overall, Nielsen said the game reached 57.9 million national viewers, the largest audience for any conference championship game since the 1982 game between the Cowboys and 49ers, where Dwight Clark made “The Catch." Aside from Super Bowl broadcasts, Sunday’s NFC Championship Game was television’s most-watched program since the 1998 finale of “Seinfeld," that drew 76.3 million viewers.

Our friends at ESPN’s Stats & Information sent out a lengthy breakdown of Sunday night’s NFC Championship Game earlier today. Since I just arrived home from New Orleans a little bit ago, I’ve only just begun to sort through it.

But one thing jumped out at me as I did a first scan. That was how effective New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees was against the blitz. The Vikings didn’t bring it often, but Brees was pretty close to flawless when they did.

Here’s a look at what Brees did against the standard rush and against the blitz:

NEW ORLEANS -- If you weren’t in the Superdome on Sunday night, and a lot of New Orleans Saints fans are going to claim that honor for years, let’s make you feel as if you were.

Let’s turn it over to Jerry Romig, the official public address announcer in the Louisiana Superdome. If you’ve been to a Saints game, you’ve heard the voice because Romig has been here for a long time. Here’s the microphone, Jerry:

“Ain’t this beautiful?” Romig said over the speakers a couple of minutes after the Saints defeated the Minnesota Vikings 31-28 in overtime in the NFC Championship Game. “The Saints are going to the Super Bowl.’’

There, you heard the official word -- and isn’t it kind of ironic that Romig used the word "ain’t"? Yes, the team that once was called the Aints and had fans wearing bags over their heads, is going to the Super Bowl. They’ll play the Indianapolis Colts -- and New Orleans native Peyton Manning -- in Super Bowl XLIV in Miami on Feb. 7.

It’s over now, but what a strange path the Saints took to get there -- both Sunday night and throughout their history.

“Anybody want a rejuvenated ulcer?’’ an elevator operator in the Superdome press box asked a few minutes after the game.

“I’m just trying to congest all this,’’ a fan said as she walked down a Superdome tunnel.

Congest it, ingest it, digest it or whatever, but enjoy it. This was about more than one of the best postseason games in NFL history. This was about the city of New Orleans, really the whole Gulf region. From Bogalusa to Lake Charles, La., from Biloxi, Miss., to Mobile, Ala., and even into parts of extreme northwest Florida, they’re celebrating more than the first Super Bowl trip in franchise history.

They’re celebrating a way of life -- a way of life that’s helped this region come back from one of the worst natural disasters in history.

“Brett Favre is a great story,’’ New Orleans linebacker Scott Fujita said. “But the New Orleans Saints are a better story.’’

Fujita’s right. What happened Sunday night was about history and legacies, but not about Favre. Sure, the stage was set for another legendary Favre moment. You know, something like the old gunslinger comes home (he grew up just up the road in Kiln, Miss.), takes an incredible beating, spends most of the game limping around and, in the end, makes a play to take his team to the Super Bowl.

Another chapter in the storybook. And all of it except the very last part came true. On a night when Adrian Peterson and Percy Harvin were bouncing balls off the Superdome floor, Favre almost overcame them.

But you want to talk about overcoming things? Let’s go back to the Saints and the community around them.

“This is for everybody in this city," coach Sean Payton said as he raised the George S. Halas Trophy over his head. “This stadium used to have holes in it and be wet. It’s not wet anymore."

No, it’s not. Looking out at the Superdome floor afterward, all you could see was confetti. Lots and lots of it. You also could see Payton dressed in a suit, throwing passes to his son and a few of his friends.

It’s playtime for the Paytons and party time for Saints fans everywhere. The days of rooting for lovable losers are over. The misery is over. At least for one night, what happened a little over four years ago is a distant memory, kind of like Archie Manning and Tom Dempsey.

What happened was the world changed for New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina hit. The city and the region were devastated.

“The city is on its way to recovery and in a lot of ways it’s come back better than ever," New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees said.

The Saints have come back better than ever, after temporarily seeking shelter in San Antonio, and that has done a lot to boost morale. But this moment is, without a doubt, the highest point yet.

“We said we were going to keep fighting until they kick us off the field and go home,’’ New Orleans linebacker Jonathan Vilma said.

That’s exactly what the Saints did Sunday night and, really, what their fans have been doing since the hurricane. The Saints beat the heck out of Favre, repeatedly stripped the ball from the hands of Peterson and Harvin and won the turnover battle five to one.

Still, in the end, they needed Favre to try to throw a cross-field pass that turned into an interception near the end of regulation, and a 40-yard field goal by 23-year-old kicker Garrett Hartley to win it nearly five minutes into overtime.

Hartley’s kick replaces Dempsey’s 63-yard field goal as the most famous kick, and probably the most famous play, in New Orleans history.

But you want one play to define this moment and the history of the Saints and New Orleans? Turn back to just before the end of the first half, with the score tied 14-14 and Reggie Bush standing near his own end zone waiting to field a punt.

Bush failed to catch the ball and the Vikings recovered at the New Orleans 10-yard line with 1:13 left in the first half.

"That’s a gut-wrenching feeling," Bush said.

Bush could have been the goat to top all goats in Saints’ history had the Vikings punched in a quick touchdown and gone on to win. Thing is, this time, it didn’t happen.

Two plays later, Favre and Peterson messed up an exchange on a handoff and Fujita recovered. Payton made it a point to have Brees hand the ball to Bush on the next two plays as the Saints ran out the clock.

That was about keeping confidence and a shot at redemption. We’re not just talking about Bush’s confidence or about Bush’s redemption, although he did score the final New Orleans touchdown. We’re talking about redemption for a franchise, a city and an entire region. Bush just happened to sum it all up perfectly in what he did on the field and what he said after the game.

“For anybody who thinks we didn’t deserve to win, they weren’t watching the same game we were," Bush said.

NEW ORLEANS -- Brace yourself because you’re about to see words that never have been written before.

The New Orleans Saints are going to the Super Bowl. Seriously.

In one of the most entertaining postseason games in history, the Saints defeated the Minnesota Vikings in overtime in the NFC Championship Game. Garrett Hartley made a 40-yard field goal to send the Saints to the Super Bowl for the first time in franchise history.

They’ll face the Indianapolis Colts in Miami.

To get there, they had to survive the legend of Brett Favre, who threw a costly interception just before the end of regulation.

I’m heading down to the locker room right now and will be back with more after the post-game interviews.

NEW ORLEANS -- It’s only fitting that the NFC Championship Game is going to overtime.

A game that’s had it all -- turnovers, Brett Favre limping all over the place and Adrian Peterson dropping the ball everywhere -- we’re going to see some more. They’re doing the coin toss right now.

Saints win toss and will receive.

NEW ORLEANS -- Well, so far the NFC Championship Game has lived up to all of the hype.

It’s 21-21 as we begin the fourth quarter and all indications are Brett Favre is about to come back after suffering a dramatic ankle injury near the end of the third quarter. Thoughts of Willis Reed come to mind.

Stay tuned. I’ll have a Rapid Reaction as soon as the game ends and lots more after the interview sessions.