Changing of the Guard

As the college football season nears its final week before the bowls begin, we observe a surprising preponderance of undefeated teams. That number will be reduced by at least one when Florida and Alabama face off this week, and it may be that someone else (e.g., Cincy?) may fall. But, still, we will go into the bowl-selection process with a superabundance of undefeated teams.

The intriguing detail is that it's not the USC, Ohio State, Oklahoma types that are cluttering up the top of the polls. Instead, you've got teams like Cincinnati, TCU, and Boise State. And the natural question becomes: Just how good are those teams, really?

It's all very nice that they have managed to play their particular schedules without losing. But what would happen if they had to play a team like Florida? Could they keep up with Texas? Would they be run off the field by USC?

The NFL doesn't have quite the same "major conference, small conference" dynamics, of course, but there are still questions that surround some teams -- teams that amass great records, yet still haven't proven themselves.

That changed for one team last night.

The New Orleans Saints looked so good on paper. They were racking up gaudy stats on offense, and they had compiled a great undefeated record. But did we take them seriously? Just because they had the best record in the league, did we really believe that they were the best team in the league?

How many times did the commentators say last night that the New England Patriots were the gold standard? So last night's game was the true test: now we would find out if the Saints were for real.

Oh my!

What a complete performance -- and total dismantling -- last night's game was. The Saints defense stymied the Patriots offense, and the Saints offense picked apart the New England defense. It was unbelievable, really. For the Colts and Patriots to play one of their closely-fought, could-have-gone-either-way annual battles wasn't surprising. And for the Patriots to lose that game (albeit in a controversial way) was no humiliation. But this?

The Saints proved themselves to be the better team on the field last night. And while it might be a toss-up if the Patriots and Colts played again next Sunday, you get the feeling that if the Patriots and Saints had a re-match, New Orleans would win again. They looked great.

And so one wonders just what happened last night. Just a regular season game? Perhaps. But I wonder if something larger took place. I wonder if the 7-4 Patriots are no longer the cream of the NFL crop. And I wonder if -- for coaching, for management, for quarterbacking, and for defense -- the center of the NFL universe has moved south to New Orleans.

Of course, the Patriots earned their reputation over the long haul, including multiple Super Bowls. In that sense, the Saints haven't won anything yet. But they have proven to my satisfaction that they are, at least, the best team in the 2009 NFL.