Police Expect More Public Drinking During Super Bowl

Drinking Alcohol In Public Actually Legal, Excise Police Say

INDIANAPOLIS — Indianapolis may feel more like Las Vegas during the Super Bowl because people will be allowed to publicly drink outside of bars, authorities said.Indiana excise police said there’s actually no law in place forbidding drinking alcohol in public as long as the person drinking is 21 and not already intoxicated.”You can take a drink outside of a bar, if it’s in the original container that it’s served in,” excise police spokesman Travis Thickstun said.

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By Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports

METAIRIE, La. – There are 53 men on the New Orleans Saints’ active roster. Nineteen of them share a similar background – they went undrafted coming out of college. Six more Saints were picked in the seventh round (most by other teams), meaning 25 active players, or more than 47 percent of New Orleans’ team, got here the hard way.

It’s not uncommon for guys who don’t get drafted to still make the league and even flourish – no one wanted the game’s top back right now, Arian Foster of the Houston Texans. Tom Brady was famously the 199th player taken in his draft.

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By Pat Yasinskas

Three things to know about next Saturday’s New Orleans Saints-San Francisco 49ers divisional playoff game:

1. On a roll: The Saints have not lost since Oct. 30 when they inexplicably dropped a game to St. Louis. Although that loss was a big reason why the Saints now have to go on the road, it brought about some positives. The Saints made some major adjustments in their pass protection to give tackles Jermon Bushrod and Zach Strief help. Since then, the offense has been unstoppable. Everyone talks about the passing game and that’s understandable. But the running game has been almost as impressive with Darren Sproles, Pierre Thomas and Chris Ivory sharing the carries. People like to label the Saints a “dome’’ team, but that’s not necessarily true. With this running game, the Saints can also play outdoors and still be able to move the ball if the weather is an obstacle.

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By Pat Yasinskas
Thoughts on the New Orleans Saints’ 45-28 victory against the Detroit Lions at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome on Saturday night.

What it means: It wasn’t quite as easy as the final score would suggest. The Lions led early and much of the game was competitive. The Saints were far from perfect and the offense turned the ball over twice in the first half. But this was still a solid win against a good team. That’s a lot better than what happened last year when the Saints got beat by Seattle in the first round of the playoffs. The Saints had plenty of momentum carrying over from the regular season and they only built on that.

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By BRETT MARTEL, AP Sports Writer

NEW ORLEANS (AP)—Having shed their long-held reputation for losing with bumbling ineptitude, the New Orleans Saints open the playoffs as the Super Bowl contenders they expected to be.

Maybe even a little better.

Drew Brees broke some of the most prestigious passing records there are and the Saints (13-3) matched their franchise-best regular-season record from their 2009 Super Bowl campaign while also going unbeaten at home for the first time in their 45-year history.

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By Pat Yasinskas

Three nuggets of knowledge about Saturday’s Lions-Saints playoff game:

The Graham Factor: You can make the case that New Orleans tight end Jimmy Graham isn’t really a tight end. He might be more of a wide receiver in a tight end’s body and that’s going to create matchup problems for the Lions. Linebackers don’t have the speed to stay with Graham and defensive backs don’t have enough size to shut him down. Graham finished the regular season just one reception short of becoming the third tight end in history to have 100 catches in a season. Of Graham’s 11 touchdowns, nine came on passes outside the yardage numbers on the field, according to ESPN Stats & Information. That was a league high among all receivers and four more touchdowns than the next tight end.

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Jen Floyd Engel

The idea being floated in some sporting circles Sunday — that Green Bay backup quarterback Matt Flynn had torpedoed Aaron Rodgers‘ MVP chances by playing beyond good — is preposterous. Drew Brees already did that in December.

Blasphemy, right?

How can I possibly make an MVP case for anybody except Rodgers?

I am not making a case, not really. Voting has ceased. I can influence nobody. I just want, when everybody starts talking about how Rodgers was the logical choice for MVP, for at least a few people to say, “Yeah, about that …”

The statistical case for the New Orleans quarterback is actually quite easy to make. It is built on a 13-3 record and 5,476 passing yards (breaking Dan Marino’s single-season record) and 46 TDs. Of course, Rodgers had gaudy numbers as well, 14-1, 122.5 passer rating, 68.3 completion percentage, blah, blah, blah.

They can stat whip just about anybody in the NFL, aside from Matthew Stafford. And for anybody arguing that Brees’ stats were just a result of going for a record, go join the Atlanta Falcons in shoving right off.

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Matt Crossman

Tracy Porter has that Monday-after-a-game look. He gets out of the SUV that drops him off at Chophouse in New Orleans and walks gingerly, like if he fell he’d break into a million pieces. He has a cast on one hand and a brace on the other.

But if happy memories can make pain go away, Porter is in luck. He is here to talk about the biggest play in New Orleans Saints history—his interception return for a touchdown that sealed the team’s first Super Bowl victory two years ago.

But before getting to that, a story from dinner: Porter orders a steak medium well, emphasis on well and asks the waiter, “Can I have a huge favor?” He asks for the steak to be delivered cut up—it would be hard if not impossible to do it himself with two bad hands. The waiter, a 20-something man who has given no indication he recognizes Porter, says, “I remember an interception from a couple years ago that equals all the favors you want.”

Saints could be without Lance Moore

It looks like there’s a growing chance the New Orleans Saints might have to play their wild-card playoff game against Detroit without wide receiver Lance Moore.

He missed his second straight day of practice with a hamstring injury. Moore missed the regular-season finale. The Saints have good depth at wide receiver as Marques Colston, Robert Meachem and Devery Henderson are all capable of handling lots of playing time. But the Saints like to work with different personnel groupings and that could mean an increased role for Adrian Arrington, who does not have a lot of experience.

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By Brian Billick

As Mark Twain was fond of saying, “There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.” People can use statistics to serve whatever argument they might want to support. Coaches are the first to dismiss statistics as irrelevant to the game. They often say that the only meaningful statistic is total points scored or surrendered.

Of course, coaches usually make such arguments in defense of poor statistical rankings in one form or another. The same coaches who scorn statistics when their teams are performing poorly will wear you out with talk of third-down conversions, yards per attempt and turnover differential when their teams are performing well in those areas.

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