Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		2.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.0

NFL Super Bowl XLIV Champions: New Orleans Saints Blu-ray Movie Review

Who Dat? Dat the Blu-ray of your 2009 Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman April 14, 2010

New Orleans is also home to a unique love affair between a city and a football team.

It was one of the most intriguing match-ups in Super Bowl history: the Indianapolis Colts versus the New Orleans Saints. Both teams rolled through the 2009 regular season, each winning their first 13 games, with the Colts tacking on a win in week 15 to push their record to 14-0 before dropping their final two tilts against their eventual AFC Championship game opponent, the New York Jets, and then in week 17, the last-place Buffalo Bills. The Saints cruised through regular season play, too, dominating their opponents early on but also capturing a bit of the luck that's needed to win 13 games in the NFL, putting on a dazzling display in week seven by overcoming what would be a 21-point deficit to beat the Dolphins 46-34, and squeezing out an overtime victory against the Washington Redskins in week 13 before dropping their final three games against the playoff-bound Dallas Cowboys, the hapless Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the middling Carolina Panthers. In addition to regular seasons that for 14 weeks saw the two finalists match one another in the win column, the two teams also piled up some high-powered offensive statistics that further added intrigue to the game; the Saints led the NFL in total offense while the Colts finished a resectable ninth behind four-time NFL MVP quarterback Peyton Manning. For all the explosive passing and big offensive numbers both Manning and the Saints' own gunslinging quarterback Drew Brees promised to put on the scoreboard for the big game, Super Bowl XLIV would come down to a defensive play that would prove the winning margin in one of the more exciting games in league history.

Anthony Hargrove: Prophet.

Though the game promised to be a high-scoring affair between two elite offenses, there were plenty of additional story lines surrounding Super Bowl XLIV that made it a fascinating matchup off the field and provided for pundits, players, coaches, and fans alike the opportunity for plenty of pre-game banter before kickoff. The game pitted the Super Bowl-tested Indianapolis Colts against the team often before known as the New Orleans "'Aints," in reference to the team's historically poor play on the field, low rankings in the season-end standings, and the fact that, before the 2009 season, the team had never won the Super Bowl -- let alone played in one -- and had tallied but a pair of playoff wins since the team's inception in 1967, an NFC Wild Card victory over the St. Louis Rams in 2000 and an NFC Divisional win against the Philadelphia Eagles in 2007. No longer a laughing stock franchise, New Orleans was primed for a long Super Bowl run, and playing for more than pride and the Vince Lombardi trophy -- carrying the hopes and dreams of an entire city devastated years earlier by and still suffering the lingering after-effects of Hurricane Katrina -- sparked the team behind the accurate arm of Quarterback Drew Brees to achieve what had before been the unachievable for the "Who Dat?" nation of long-suffering New Orleans Saints fans.

On the other side of the ball, intrigue stemmed from the connection shared between Colts signal caller Peyton Manning and the New Orleans Saints franchise. Manning, the former Tennessee Volunteers quarterback, is a New Orleans native and son of longtime Saints QB Archie Manning, one of the few bright spots on the dreadfully bad Saints teams he played for in the 1970s. Despite the New Orleans connection, however, Manning's involvement in the Super Bowl couldn't have been any more drastically different than his opposite number with the Saints; while the big game newcomer Brees was faced with the circus that is Super Bowl week for the first time, Manning -- a veteran of Super Bowl XLI and the player named that game's most valuable -- seemed the better equipped of the two to handle the pressures that come with the Super Bowl spotlight off the field, not to mention those on it. Indeed, though Brees had proved year after year to be one of the league's most dominant forces behind center, Manning's composure, Super Bowl experience, and wealth of talent as the holder of numerous individual records, seemed to immediately give the Colts an advantage before kickoff. Still, the Colts were without longtime head coach Tony Dungy, who had retired before the start of the 2009 season, leaving the squad in the capable hands of rookie head coach but longtime Colts assistant Jim Caldwell. Caldwell's tenure with the Colts earned him experience through the team's previous Super Bowl run, while the Saints' Sean Payton had also previously enjoyed a taste of the big game while serving as the New York Giants' offensive coordinator in Super Bowl XXXV. Nevertheless, the intangibles seemed to favor the Colts, who enjoyed an edge in experience and a greater tradition of recent success, but that, as they say, is why they play the game.

Warner's Blu-ray release of NFL Super Bowl XLIV Champions begins with a look at both the (not so memorable) lean years of the New Orleans Saints and, more relevant to recent history as the team has enjoyed a massive resurrection in the Drew Brees/Sean Payton era, the post-Katrina bond between city and team. A franchise that needed 21 years just to post a winning record, this film explores the love affair between a proud city and a wobbly franchise and moves on to showcase the highlights of the Saints' Super Bowl-bound 2009 regular season schedule that began with a lopsided victory over the hapless Detroit Lions and through the following 12 victories against the Eagles, Bills, Jets, Giants, Dolphins, Falcons, Panthers, Rams, Bucs, Pats, Redskins, and Atlanta again, before the team dropped its final three outings against the Dallas Cowboys and NFC South division rivals Tampa Bay and Carolina. Following the regular season exploits, the film takes a slightly more in-depth look at the Saints' two playoff games -- both in the Superdome -- against 2008 season runner-up Arizona and, in the NFC Championship game, the Brett Favre-led Minnesota Vikings. Finally, the film offers a detailed look at the highlights from the Saints' victory in Super Bowl XLIV over the Indianapolis Colts, a sporting event that was the most-watched program in the history of television.

2009-2010 New Orleans Saints schedule and results (winning team appears in bold).

Week One:
Sunday, September 13, 2009: Detroit Lions at New Orleans Saints, 45-27. Superdome: New Orleans, Louisiana.

Week Two:
Sunday, September 20, 2009: New Orleans Saints at Philadelphia Eagles, 48-22. Lincoln Financial Field: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Week Three:
Sunday, September 27, 2009: New Orleans Saints at Buffalo Bills, 27-7. Ralph Wilson Stadium: Buffalo, New York.

Week Four:
Sunday, October 4, 2009: New York Jets at New Orleans Saints, 24-10. Superdome: New Orleans, Louisiana.

Week Five:
BYE

Week Six:
Sunday, October 18, 2009: New York Giants at New Orleans Saints, 48-27. Superdome: New Orleans, Louisiana.

Week Seven:
Sunday, October 25, 2009: New Orleans Saints at Miami Dolphins, 46-34. Sun Life Stadium: Miami, Florida.

Week Eight:
Monday, November 2, 2009: Atlanta Falcons at New Orleans Saints, 35-27. Superdome: New Orleans, Louisiana.

Week Nine:
Sunday, November 8, 2009: Carolina Panthers at New Orleans Saints, 30-20. Superdome: New Orleans, Louisiana

Week Ten:
Sunday, November 15, 2009: New Orleans Saints at St. Louis Rams, 28-23. Edward Jones Dome, St. Louis, Missouri.

Week Eleven:
Sunday, November 22, 2009: New Orleans Saints at Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 38-7. Raymond James Stadium: Tampa, Florida.

Week Twelve:
Monday, November 30, 2009: New England Patriots at New Orleans Saints, 38-17. Superdome: New Orleans, Louisiana.

Week Thirteen:
Sunday, December 6, 2009: New Orleans Saints at Washington Redskins, 33-30, OT. Fed Ex Field: Landover, Maryland.

Week Fourteen:
Sunday, December 13, 2009: New Orleans Saints at Atlanta Falcons, 26-23. Georgia Dome: Atlanta, Georgia.

Week Fifteen:
Saturday, December 19, 2009: Dallas Cowboys at New Orleans Saints, 24-17. Superdome: New Orleans, Louisiana.

Week Sixteen:
Sunday, December 27, 2009: Tampa Bay Buccaneers at New Orleans Saints, 20-17, OT. Superdome: New Orleans, Louisiana.

Week Seventeen:
Sunday, January 3, 2010: New Orleans Saints at Carolina Panthers, 23-10. Bank of America Stadium: Charlotte, North Carolina.

NFC Divisional Playoff:
Saturday, January 16, 2010: Arizona Cardinals at New Orleans Saints, 45-14. Superdome: New Orleans, Louisiana.

NFC Championship Game:
Sunday, January 24, 2010: Minnesota Vikings at New Orleans Saints, 31-28, OT. Superdome: New Orleans, Louisiana.

Super Bowl XLIV:
Sunday, February 7, 2010: Indianapolis Colts at New Orleans Saints, 31-17. Sun Life Stadium: Miami, Florida.

NFL Super Bowl XLIV Champions: New Orleans Saints Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

NFL Super Bowl XLIV Champions is more of a second-quarter field goal-type transfer than it is a game-winning touchdown sort, but this 1080i, 1.78:1-framed image does well enough considering the type of material it covers. The film incorporates some understandably raw stock footage of New Orleans at the time of Hurricane Katrina, but it generally sharpens up nicely for the newly-minted football action. However, some early interview pieces with non-football personnel such as Author Anne Rice appear undefined, smudgy, flat, and lacking in detail, but the overlaying graphics are suitably sharp and crisp. The football action, much of it seen in the slow motion typical of NFL Films-style presentations, features stable colors and adequate detail reproduction. Whether the Detroit Lions' light blue jerseys, the green grasses, or the Saints' black and gold uniforms, the transfer's color palette tends more to impress rather than depress. However, fine detailing is hit-or-miss; the image can sometimes appear somewhat noisy, soft, and flat; medium-distance shots of grass or turf look more smudgy than natural, but close-up shots of faces and uniforms reveal smaller, more intricate textures and details. A few slightly jagged edges are visible from time to time and some random debris -- for instance some static speckles seen around the top right-hand corner of the screen during a Darren Sharper interception return for a touchdown during the Jets game -- occasionally creeps into the frame. All told, Saints and NFL fans should be suitably pleased with Warner's efforts here. It's obviously not on par with a quality release of a major Hollywood film, but the disc nevertheless suitably captures all the action of the Saints' 2009 Super Bowl run from a visual perspective.

NFL Super Bowl XLIV Champions: New Orleans Saints Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

NFL Super Bowl XLIV Champions features only a Dolby Digital 5. 1 lossy soundtrack. Despite the absence of a lossless or uncompressed presentation, the soundtrack is adequate in every area, though it's terribly loud at reference volume. Still, and despite the lack of absolute clarity and spacing associated with the better, more finely-tuned of soundtracks, this one admirably gets the job done in every facet once the volume has been appropriately adjusted. Dialogue, notably from narrator Scott Graham, is clear and consistently discernible, if not a bit heavy on the low end. The music is of the traditional NFL Films style, sounding heroic, grand, and with a slight militaristic tone that's carried nicely by the Dolby Digital presentation, flowing primarily through the front but with some back channel support. Likewise, the New Orleans-style Jazz music is smooth and nicely delivered, sounding perhaps a bit more clear and precise than the stout primary themes. The surround channels additionally carry some crowd atmospherics but don't convincingly immerse the listener in the game time environments. Overall, this is a decent but unspectacular presentation. It gets the job done without any major hiccups, but expectations need be set accordingly and in conjunction with the style of material this meager but steady track accompanies.

NFL Super Bowl XLIV Champions: New Orleans Saints Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

NFL Super Bowl XLIV Champions doesn't punt on extras. The disc features several bonuses that supplement the material found in the main program, beginning with Super Bowl Media Day (1080i, 12:31). This piece features Head Coach Sean Payton and Players Drew Brees, Jeremy Shockey, Darren Sharper, Jonathan Vilma, Marques Colston, and Reggie Bush fielding questions from NFL Network analysts Steve Mariucci and Deion Sanders. The Bridgestone Super Bowl XLIV Halftime Show Featuring 'The Who' (1080i, 12:35) is, yes, the halftime program featured in full. Super Bowl Post-Game Ceremonies (1080i, 6:11) features the Vince Lombardi Trophy presentation to the Saints, with CBS' Jim Nantz interviewing Saints owner Tom Benson, Head Coach Sean Payton, and Quarterback Drew Brees. Next up are two features focusing on the life of Saints Defensive Tackle Anthony Hargrove. Anthony Hargrove: A Player's Journey 1080i, 9:19) features the star speaking on his career, early life in Brooklyn, the death of his mother, college career, personal struggles after breaking into the NFL, 2008 suspension, time in drug rehab, and signing with the New Orleans Saints, while Anthony Hargrove: The Journey Home 1080i, 3:42) looks at Hargrove's visit to his Miami rehab center before the Super Bowl. Sean Payton: A Head Coach's Story (1080i, 3:49) is a short interview piece that features the head coach speaking on his tenure in New Orleans. Jeremy Shockey's Super Bowl Run (1080i, 3:44) contains an interview with the Saints' tight end as he looks back on his injury that kept him from participating in Super Bowl XLII and his time with New Orleans. Next is Deuce McAllister Comes Home (1080i, 3:05), a short interview piece with the former record-setting Saints running back and his participation with the team during the 2009 postseason. Finally, the disc contains a preview for Ultimate NFL (1080i, 2:15).

NFL Super Bowl XLIV Champions: New Orleans Saints Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

NFL Super Bowl XLIV Champions is a must-own disc for fans of the New Orleans Saints. For those familiar with last year's Super Bowl release from Warner Brothers, this 2010 edition follows the same standard layout, featuring highlights from each of the Saints' 16 regular season games and three post-season affairs, with emphasis, of course, on their Super Bowl victory over the Indianapolis Colts. The disc also takes a glimpse into the importance of the Saints to the city of New Orleans, particularly in a post-Katrina era, and the program truly gives the non-Saints fan an overview of just how tightly-knit the community has always been with their team, even through the lean years when they were better known as the "'Aints." The city and all of "Who Dat" nation around the world can now relive the highlights of their team's first Super Bowl victory through this sturdy package from Warner Brothers. Although the technical presentation isn't on par with the better Blu-ray releases, both the video and audio qualities suffice, and the program is reinforced by a strong assortment of bonus materials. Recommended for both Saints diehards and NFL fans of all allegiances.