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NEW ORLEANS -- About 15 minutes after his season ended, Adrian Peterson emerged from the Minnesota locker room. Still wearing his full uniform and with a rare scowl on his face, Peterson walked out of the Superdome tunnel and stood transfixed. Playing out in front of him was New Orleans’ NFC championship celebration, complete with gold glitter and Will Smith’s ubiquitous “Welcome to Miami” playing over the Superdome sound system.

He stood watching for a full minute before turning his back, shoulders slumped and head down, and returning to the locker room.

“Painful,” Peterson said. “It was painful [to watch], especially the way the game ended. Our guys fought hard. I honestly thought we gave the game away. … It was just to see the feeling of the guys celebrating and dancing around. Just giving myself something good to build off this offseason.”

For me, Peterson’s polar performance Sunday will be the lasting image of the Vikings’ 31-28 loss in the NFC Championship Game. I know many will be blinded by the two-play sequence on the Vikings’ final drive -- one a penalty for 12 men on the field and the other Brett Favre’s final-throw interception in the fourth quarter. I’m aware there were some questionable decisions from referee Peter Morelli’s crew, some of which the Vikings openly questioned in the postgame locker room.

But it was Peterson who best illustrated the dichotomy of a Vikings team that beat the Saints in every way except on the scoreboard. He became the fifth running back in NFL history to rush for three touchdowns in a championship game, and his 122 yards were his highest total in nine games.

But Peterson fumbled twice and caused a third turnover on the Saints’ goal line when he botched a handoff in the second quarter. Worse, he was so out of control in the second half that the Vikings benched him in the most critical point of their season. Despite an overwhelming advantage on the stat sheet -- they outgained New Orleans’ explosive offense 475-257 -- the Vikings’ five turnovers denied them a chance to play in Super Bowl XLIV.

We don’t know if Favre will return next season, as my colleague Gene Wojciechowski points out, so it’s difficult to know exactly what the 2010 Vikings will look like. But one thing remains clear: If they’re going to count on Peterson as a primary building block, the Vikings must stabilize his performance from what we saw in the final half of 2009 and throughout the NFC Championship Game.

Peterson put the ball on the ground three times Sunday in a span of 10 minutes in the second and third quarters. One cost the Vikings a chance to score on 2nd-and-goal from the 4-yard line. Over-excited about the prospect of taking the lead before halftime, Peterson was slow to get his arms in a fundamental position to take the handoff from Favre.

“Poorly executed by me,” Peterson said. “Didn’t make a big enough pocket and it hit my elbow.”

Peterson admitted the play stayed on his mind in the second half and played a role in fumbles on the Vikings’ first two possessions of the third quarter. He ran wildly and seemed to break every rule of responsible running -- breaking the ball to the outside to outrun the defense, swinging the ball far from his body and contributing to a frenetic pace that left the Vikings gasping for much of the second half.

I don’t blame the Vikings one bit from playing him sparingly thereafter, but I consider it a pretty critical situation when one of a team’s best players can’t get on the field in the NFC Championship Game because he’s out of control.

“It was all about mindset in holding on to the ball,” Peterson said. “Thinking about it when you’re out there. You have to make sure you hold on to the ball. I’ve been saying it all year. It’s a battle I’ve got to fight. Eventually I overcame it.”

Indeed, Peterson returned to tie the game on a 2-yard touchdown run with 5:03 remaining, but by all rights the Vikings shouldn’t have been fighting to get even in this game. Their defense had played exceptionally well for most of the game, limiting the Saints to 15 first downs on only three of 12 conversions on third down.

“We beat ourselves,” tight end Visanthe Shiancoe said. “We made a lot of plays, but we left a lot of plays out there. Those things happen. I guess it’s too bad it happened in the NFC Championship Game.”

No player singled out Peterson, and I want to be clear that I don’t consider him anywhere close to solely at fault for the Vikings’ loss. Receivers Bernard Berrian and Percy Harvin also lost fumbles, and coach Brad Childress said Favre “would be the first to tell you he wished he had those [two] throws back.”

But truth be told, the Vikings entered this game with a plan to rely on Peterson more than they have at any point during a Favre-dominated season. They opened the game with five consecutive passes, but ultimately their plan was for Peterson to help keep the Saints’ offense off the field.

“I think we knew we had to,” left guard Steve Hutchinson said. “The style and capability of the offense the Saints have, we knew we had to control the clock. And it worked, or at least part of it. I think we did that. We just had turnovers and penalties that cost us at inopportune times.”

I think that’s why Peterson was so morose after the game, even after the Vikings ran up their biggest rushing total (165 yards) since mid-October. He knew the Vikings needed him to get to Miami, but he wasn’t able to complete the job.

Although he has led the NFL in fumbles since entering the league in 2007, only a handful have negatively impacted a game. Sunday, however, was different. Peterson has said often that obsessing over fumbles only creates a compounding effect. But I think he has reached the point where he needs to consider a fundamental intervention this offseason to address the issue.

“With my running style,” he said, “it will be something I think about as far as protecting and keeping the ball high. The way I run, the ball kind of gets low. I’ve got to be more cautious of that: Keeping the ball high. That will be something I’m more conscious of in the offseason.”

As we saw Sunday, it can be the difference between watching a championship celebration from the tunnel and participating in it on the field.

NEW ORLEANS -- Minnesota was in business with one minute, six seconds remaining in regulation of the NFC Championship Game. The Vikings had the ball on first down at New Orleans’ 33-yard line, with two timeouts and the NFL’s second most-accurate field goal kicker this season.

It all unraveled, however, in a two-play sequence that will be discussed all offseason in Minnesota. Here’s a closer look:

Prior to third down at the 33, the Vikings called a timeout with 19 seconds left. They changed their personnel during the break, according to coach Brad Childress, but not every player got the message. Childress said the Vikings “slipped up” and had an extra fullback on the field, leading to a crippling 5-yard penalty for 12 men in the huddle. It’s believed the fullback was Naufahu Tahi.

That pushed the ball back to the 38-yard line, meaning placekicker Ryan Longwell -- who had converted 26 of 28 field goals during the regular season -- would be faced with a 55- or 56-yard attempt to win the game. Longwell’s career high came from 55 yards to win a 2007 game at Soldier Field.

“We would have tried that from 56 yards,” Longwell said.” But after that 12-men-on-the field penalty, they felt we needed to get a little closer.”

So the Vikings sent quarterback Brett Favre on a rollout. Afterwards, Favre would say he wished he had run the ball and called a timeout. Instead, he threw across his body toward receiver Sidney Rice at the Saints’ 22-yard line. Cornerback Tracy Porter stepped in front of Rice and intercepted the pass.

“I was actually late to Sidney,” Favre said. “I probably should have ran it. I don’t know far I could have gotten, but in hindsight, that is probably what I should have done.”

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 -- Minnesota fans are now asking the same question that Green Bay fans asked two years ago: Did Brett Favre throw away his team’s chances to go to the Super Bowl?

Favre’s overtime interception in the 2007 NFC Championship Game led to the New York Giants’ winning score at Lambeau Field. Sunday, Favre threw an interception with seven seconds remaining in regulation, denying Minnesota a chance to attempt, an admittedly long, 55-yard game-winning field goal. New Orleans went on to win the NFC championship on the first possession of overtime, getting a 40-yard field goal from Garrett Hartley and ending the Vikings’ season one step short of Miami, site of Super Bowl XLIV.

It’s not fair to hold Favre responsible for the loss, especially in a drama-filled game that took as many turns as you’ll ever see in a postseason contest. Favre took a beating all evening from the Saints' defense, played much of the second half with a significant left ankle injury and was dealing with a tailback in Adrian Peterson who fumbled three times. Overall, the Vikings committed five turnovers – a performance that frankly made them fortunate to be within striking distance at the end of regulation.

I know it’s a cliché, but this is the kind of game where you hate to see either team lose. It’s easily the most dramatic and hard-fought game I’ve ever seen in person.

More in a few hours.

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 -- We’ll soon find out whether Brett Favre just threw an interception on par with his 2007 mistake in the 2007 NFC Championship Game. Or was it just a bump on Minnesota’s road to the Super Bowl?

We’re headed to overtime after Favre’s interception, the Vikings’ fifth turnover of the game, denied them a chance to kick a potential game-winning field goal at the end of regulation. I’ve said it before, but what an amazingly dramatic game we’re seeing. It’s an all-timer, right?

NEW ORLEANS -- In the first 55 minutes of this game, Minnesota has outgained New Orleans in yardage 429-227. Four turnovers have ensured that the score is tied 28-28.

What an amazing game. I’m going to focus in and will be back with you shortly after we have an NFC champion.

NEW ORLEANS -- Let’s just get this out of the way now.

It hasn’t been “Pants on the Ground” for Minnesota.

It’s been “Footballs on the Ground.”

The Vikings are fumbling away their chances to play in the Super Bowl. They’ve fumbled six times in this game, losing three amid a total of four turnovers. Two have come in the red zone.

Frankly, it’s amazing they’re only trailing 28-21 with 8 minutes, 10 seconds remaining in this game.

More in a bit.

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.

NEW ORLEANS -- It’s one quarter for the NFC Championship.

That’s what it’s come to with the teams tied at 21 at the start of the fourth quarter. If Minnesota is going to the Super Bowl, it will be with a tailback who can’t hold on to the ball and a quarterback who has been brutalized all game and has some kind of left ankle injury.

Both Adrian Peterson and Brett Favre are on the field, however. Let’s all sit back and enjoy what happens next. Remember, I’m over at NFL Nation Live as well.

NEW ORLEANS -- Minnesota tied the game here in the third quarter despite Adrian Peterson. That’s right. Peterson nearly imploded on the Vikings’ first possession of the second half, fumbling once and trying way too hard to make yards outside the numbers.

As it turned out, tight end Visanthe Shiancoe got the Vikings into scoring possession with three receptions for 67 yards, his first three catches of the game. Peterson capped the drive with a 1-yard run, but he needs to calm himself or he is going to lose this game for the Vikings.

NEW ORLEANS -- Some thoughts from halftime at the Superdome:

• This game slowed down from a shootout pace for the same reason on both sides: Pass rush. New Orleans hit Minnesota quarterback Brett Favre on five of their first 12 plays, including a particularly brutal backside hit from defensive end Bobby McCray. The Saints drew a 15-yard penalty for that hit, but it might have been worth it. Favre was a bit less accurate in the second quarter, completing five of nine passes after completing 10 of 14 in the first quarter. A high throw to receiver Bernard Berrian on a third down pass was especially noteworthy.
• On defense, meanwhile, the Vikings didn’t get a sack on quarterback Drew Brees. But they’ve misdirected a number of his passes with penetration in the backfield. Defensive linemen Jared Allen, Kevin Williams and Jimmy Kennedy have all disrupted plays by getting in Brees’ face. Remember, Brees was only sacked 20 times this season. So what you’re seeing is probably the best most teams would do against him in terms of the pass rush.
• Tailback Adrian Peterson hasn’t fumbled since overtime of the Vikings’ Dec. 28 game at Chicago, and I’m not sure I’m going to give him total blame for the botched exchange that cost the Vikings at least three points near the end of the half. Either Favre got the ball to him too early, or Peterson wasn’t fully ready for the handoff. But in either event, the Vikings’ only mistake of the first half was a costly one.
• Peterson has looked particularly energetic but hasn’t really done much after running 19 yards for a touchdown at the end of the Vikings’ first drive. The Vikings will need him to bounce back from the fumble in the second half.
• To this point, the Vikings haven’t allowed Reggie Bush to impact this game. He’s fair caught two punts and allowed another to go out of bounds. And he should have called a fair catch on his fourth attempt, but instead muffed the catch and lost the ball to the Vikings. After watching the replay, did you think Kenny Onatolu was down when he recovered the ball? Or should the Vikings have been awarded a touchdown on the play? UPDATE: Thanks to readers who pointed out you can't advance a muff.

NEW ORLEANS -- Very interesting turn of events at the end of the first half. Reggie Bush seemed to be headed for goat duty after he fumbled a punt return and gave the Vikings great field position.

But Brett Favre and Adrian Peterson let him off the hook by botching a handoff near the goal line. The Vikings lost the ball and New Orleans linebacker Scott Fujita recovered.

What happened next might have seemed insignificant at the time as the Saints ran out the clock with two running plays. But I think those plays were highly significant because coach Sean Payton called for Bush to carry both times.

I think that was Payton’s way of sending a message to Bush. Payton was telling Bush he still has his confidence. I think that could mean a lot in the second half. Had Payton not done that, Bush could have gone into a funk and been a non-factor the rest of the game.

I think Bush will be a big factor in the second half.

NEW ORLEANS -- Some random thoughts on the first quarter.

• The New Orleans defense has spent a lot of time on the field. Can’t go on like this and win.
• Vikings are airing it out and crowd noise hasn’t seemed to hamper them.
• Didn’t like the double-reverse call by Sean Payton near the end of the first quarter. One dangerous thing with Payton is he sometimes thinks too much and gets too fancy.
• Defensive end Bobby McCray has put big hits on Kurt Warner and Brett Favre in back to back weeks. He got a 15-yard flag for the hit on Favre.
• I think all this passing may be a setup for a lot of Adrian Peterson runs as the game goes on.