MIAMI — After the New Orleans Saints had hoisted the Vince Lombardi Trophy and returned

to their locker room Sunday night, defensive coordinator Gregg Williams handed a little

present to head coach Sean Payton.

It was a jar of peanut butter.

Early in Super Bowl week, Payton teased Williams by having waiters serve him two jars of

peanut butter, saltine crackers and a glass of sand. It was Payton's way of telling Williams

to tone down his comments after Williams had said his defense intended to deliver some

"remember me" hits on Peyton Manning.

Williams talked the talk before the game and backed it up with a great game plan in New

Orleans' 31-17 upset of the Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLIV.

Mark Gaughan's postgame analysis

Williams was not going to sit back and let Manning pick his defense apart.

With the game on the line in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl XLIV, Williams blitzed

Manning on four of six plays, culminating with the 74-yard interception return for a touchdown

by cornerback Tracy Porter.

Williams has made his living in his 20-year NFL coaching career by playing aggressive

defense. He stayed true to his philosophy against the Indianapolis Colts' great quarterback

Sunday night.

Williams' defensive scheming was a big factor in the Saints' win.

The Saints' 25th-ranked defense held the Colts prolific offense to just 17 points. It was

far from a dominating night for Williams. New Orleans gave up 333 passing yards to Manning.

But the Saints' defense stopped the Colts on three drives in the fourth quarter.

Ten years ago, Williams got to the Super Bowl as Tennessee's defensive coordinator and he

came up one yard short of a title in losing a thriller to the St. Louis Rams. Since then, of

course, he failed in a three-year stint as the Buffalo Bills' head coach.

But Williams got his Super Bowl ring in Miami, and the game was the crowning achievement on

his outstanding career as a defensive coach.

"This is kind of a redemption that makes me feel a lot better about 10 years ago,"

Williams said.

The Saints switched their main defensive scheme for the game. They came out in a 3-4

front, even though the 4-3 is their base defense. They had played the 3-4 at times this year,

but not a ton.

The move was all part of Williams' plan to do whatever he could to keep Manning from his

usual stone-cold lock on the defensive plan.

"The first quarter we were almost all 3-4," Williams said. "The second quarter we went

back to the 4-3. The third quarter we mixed it up, and the fourth quarter we mixed it back and

forth. That was our plan, to make sure we didn't show everything we had early in the game."

"We had a first half game plan, a third quarter game plan and a fourth quarter game plan

and we were able to stick to it because our offense was able to keep us in position," Williams

said.

The middle of the game resembled Super Bowl XXV, when the New York Giants kept Buffalo's

Jim Kelly on the sidelines by holding the ball for a long drives to end the second quarter and

to open the third quarter.

There was a 70-minute span of real time from the middle of the second quarter to the 11:33

mark of the third quarter, counting halftime, in which Manning was on the field only 1:14.

Just like the Giants' plan in Super Bowl XXV, the Saints weren't worried about yielding

rushing yards.

"At our first staff meeting," Williams said, "our coach (Payton) said, "You guys can't get

upset if we give up 100 yards rushing. I said, "Coach, we can't get upset if we give up 200

yards rushing.' So he compromised in our first team meeting during the bye week and told the

team, "We can't be upset if we give up 150 yards rushing.'"

Manning killed the blitz this year. In the regular season, he faced an average of only nine

blitzes a game (149 overall). He completed 67.7 percent of his passes against the blitz with

10 TD passes and just five sacks.

The Saints sent at least 18 pressures at him, by unofficial count, and gave up only two

plays of 25 or more yards, neither of them touchdowns.

The Colts' first big fourth-quarter stop came when middle linebacker Jonathan Vilma got 30

yards downfield in coverage in the middle of the field and deflected a seam pass for Austin

Collie. It forced a 51-yard field-goal try, which the Colts missed.

"That was huge," Williams said. "It was an audible. We were in a blitz defense. He checked

us back into a coverage defense. The mark of a good player is to play well and elevate the

level of everybody around him. Jonathan Vilma had to get 10 other guys lined up and still got

deep down the middle in a Tampa Cover 2 defense to make that play. It was a huge play."

Then came the big series, after the Saints scored to take a 24-17 lead.

Manning had marched the Colts to the Saints' 31. On third-and-5, Williams sent six rushers

at Manning. The throw went toward Reggie Wayne on a short, 5-yard in-cut. Porter saw it coming

all the way.

"Tracy Porter did a great job recognizing the play," Williams said. "And our three

linebackers did a great job convincing me to run that pressure. They suggested to me about

three or four plays before that to come back to that pressure on that down and distance again.

Players make plays, coaches don't. I made the call, but Tracy made that play."

With the game on the line, Manning didn't get it done. He has 43 comebacks in the fourth

quarter or overtime, including a classic against New England to get the Colts into the Super

Bowl four years ago.

But Joe Montana won a Super Bowl with a classic drive against Cincinnati in 1989. Johnny

Unitas won the 1958 title game with a winning drive in overtime. Bart Starr won the "Ice Bowl"

over Dallas with a drive in 1967. Manning could not add that kind of epic moment to his

resume.

Williams trumped one of the great quarterbacks of all time with an under-manned,

overachieving defense. For the former Bills head coach, it was an achievement of a lifetime.