Super Bowl analysis: Saints have passing chance

There are three things a team and its fans must do to ensure a successful Super Bowl Sunday: win the passing battle, win the turnover battle and, naturally, win the tailgate battle.

It looks like one team is poised to do all three on Sunday. It starts, as every NFL game does, with the respective quarterbacks.

Drew Brees vs. The Chosen One

Over at Cold, Hard Football Facts, we dubbed Peyton Manning “The Chosen One” because of his unmatched pedigree. You know the family story. Don’t need to rehash it here. Three Legends of the South. First Family of Football, blah, blah blah. You also know that Peyton’s the most prolific of the bunch, a record-setting quarterback in both college and the NFL destined for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

He’s great. One of the best ever. We don’t doubt that.

But with pedigree comes the benefit of the doubt. All else being equal, the pedigree tips the scales in the court of public opinion. Pedigree is why a yuppie tool such as Chip Diller ends up in the Omega House while Flounder is relegated to the Delta House. Pedigree is why Kennedys win elections despite behavior that would destroy a lesser name.

Pedigree also is why certain quarterbacks repeatedly win NFL MVP awards under unusual circumstances.

Manning won MVP honors for a record-setting fourth time in 2009. But we’re still trying to figure out why. Great season, yes. Gutted out some great wins, yes. The Colts are in the Super Bowl, yes.

But back in 2003 and 2004, Indy’s quarterback was handed the award because he put up big numbers playing for teams that won despite bad defenses.

Remember that old argument? Numbers trump victories, declared MVP voters and Colts fans.

Then in 2008 and 2009, voters changed the argument to satisfy their love affair with the pigskin pedigree of the Chosen One: Manning won the award both years, despite the fact that his teams possessed strong defenses and despite the fact that several other quarterbacks each year put up better numbers, in some cases much better.

The fact of the matter is that Saints quarterback Drew Brees had the better season by almost every measure.

• Brees threw for more touchdowns than Manning (league-best 34 to 33)

• Brees threw fewer INTs than Manning (11 to 16)

• Brees produced a much higher average per attempt than Manning (8.5 to 7.9)

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• And, just for stats and giggles, Brees set the single-season record for passing accuracy, completing 70.62 percent of his passes (Manning completed 68.8 percent).

Brees also led his historically dysfunctional franchise to a team-record 13 victories and its first Super Bowl appearance in 44 tries.

Pedigree trumps production.

But the bottom line is that the advantage at quarterback on Sunday lies not with the Colts and their MVP quarterback, as it usually does, but with the Saints.

It’s all about the interceptions

There are a handful of “magic” stats in sports — those that, beyond the final score, are extraordinarily reliable at separating winners from losers when you look at the postgame box score.

Perhaps no indicator in sports is more important than interceptions. All football fans know about the importance of turnovers. Fumbles, though, often are fluky — like a basement-dwelling WEEI listener landing a date.

Interceptions, though, tell us quite a bit about the relative merits of each quarterback and each team. They certainly have an incredible impact on wins and losses.

The proof is on the scoreboard. Quarterbacks who throw fewer picks are a perfect 10-0 here in the 2009 postseason. It’s no one-year fluke. Quarterbacks who throw fewer picks are a tremendous 273-56 (.830) in every playoff game since the AFL-NFL merger of 1970.

Zero picks from your QB? You win 80 percent of the time. Two picks? You win just 30 percent of the time.

That’s a tremendous impact. And it creates, if recent numbers are any indication, a clear advantage to the Saints.

New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees threw just 11 picks on 514 pass attempts this year (2.14 percent). Colts quarterback Peyton