Saints deny Wayne chance to make impact

MIAMI -- Reggie Wayne didn't hang around to watch.

As the confetti fell, and as his hometown New Orleans Saints celebrated with all the verve with which that town celebrates, the Colts' four-time Pro Bowl wide receiver left the field as quickly as he could.

Before making the play of the game, Tracy Porter (right) prevents Reggie Wayne from making any big gains. (AP)

Not that the Saints didn't deserve credit. He had just seen the scene before.

And he had seen it in far more pleasant circumstances.

And whereas Wayne was a huge factor three years before, when he and his teammates reveled on this same South Florida field, on Sunday night the plays weren't quite there quite often enough.

It wasn't the knee injury that flared up on Friday, Wayne said.

And it wasn't anything special the Saints did, necessarily.

In fact, Wayne said there wasn't a tremendous amount of analysis or breakdown to be done. It just didn't happen Sunday, Wayne said. And once it was done, it was done.

"I just wasn't getting the ball like I thought I was going to get it," Wayne said in the aftermath of the Colts' 31-17 loss to the Saints on Sunday night. "I just had to wait for my opportunities."

The opportunities didn't come -- not enough of them, anyway -- in part because the Saints and defensive coordinator Gregg Williams focused on not letting them happen.

Wayne, coming off his second 100-reception season in the past three years, reminded Williams more than a bit of Michael Irvin, who -- like Wayne -- played collegiately at the University of Miami.

Williams said he often breaks out old game plans to combat receivers -- particularly the great ones -- who remind him of former great ones. The Irvin comparison, Williams said, was strong enough to make playing Wayne similar to Irvin make sense.

There was some safety help, Williams said. There was some physical stuff. There was some double coverage, too.

"A lot of what we did was what we'd do against Michael," Williams said.

Whatever it was, for much of the game, it worked. Wayne, the Colts' go-to receiver who had a monster season with three game-winning touchdown receptions, had five catches for 46 yards. While Wayne left practice after aggravating the "fat pad" in his right knee Friday, he said that wasn't an issue Sunday.

"The knee wasn't bothering me," he said. "Not at all. Not one bit."

The Colts' last hope, a late drive that reached the Saints 5-yard line in the final two minutes, ended when a pass from Peyton Manning bounced harmlessly from Wayne's hands to the South Florida turf. And minutes before, the game's second-most memorable play -- if you consider the momentum-changing onside kick that opened the second half the most memorable -- came on a pass in Wayne's direction.

The Saints blitzed Manning hard on the play, a third-and-5 from the Saints 31. It was the sort of play the Colts, who rallied an NFL-record seven times in the fourth quarter to win this season, made with such regularity this season that it looked easy. Only this time, when the Saints blitzed, Manning's pass never reached Wayne.

Instead, Saints cornerback Tracy Porter cut in front of Wayne, and 74 yards later, the Colts were in what Wayne called "desperation mode" -- down by 14, with 3:12 remaining.

Wayne said in retrospect, the play wasn't surprising. The Saints, he said, have a defense that has thrived on the big return, the game-turner. He said they squatted a bit throughout the game.

"That's kind of how they were playing throughout the game," Wayne said.

"We'd run it quite a few times," Wayne said of the play call. "We ran it earlier in the game and Peyton went backside with it, so I think he [Porter] kind of had a feeling it was coming, because it was the same formation.

"He did a good job recognizing it and, like I said, he made a good play."

The Colts, who entered the game playing for legacy and history, left it with the same feeling as any Super Bowl loser, a feeling Wayne summed up when he was asked if he admired the gutsiness of the onside kick call by Saints head coach Sean Payton.

"I'm the one over here with my lip poked out," Wayne said. "Obviously, it was a good call."

Desperation mode inevitably became disappointment, and soon enough, the confetti was falling. Instead of celebrating, he was speaking about losing to a team he had grown up following. Certainly, he said, he can appreciate what the victory means to the city of New Orleans.

"They did a good job coming into this game, getting the 'W' and giving the city something to smile about," he said. "I'm pretty sure it's going nuts over there."

It was, but after Super Bowl XLIV, Wayne wasn't going to hang around and watch.