Top seeds Indianapolis and New Orleans each moved within one home victory of advancing to the Super Bowl with lopsided National Football League home playoff triumphs on Saturday.
Peyton Manning threw for two touchdowns in the last two minutes of the first half to power Indianapolis past Baltimore 20-3, while Drew Brees threw for three touchdowns and Reggie Bush ran for two in a 45-14 New Orleans rout of Arizona.
Next Sunday, Indianapolis will host the winner of yesterday’s game between San Diego and the New York Jets and the Saints will entertain yesterday’s winner between Minnesota and Dallas to decide berths in the Super Bowl on Feb. 7.
The Colts and Saints faltered late in the season after sensational starts that earned first-round playoff byes and a home-field playoff edge, New Orleans losing the last three games and Indianapolis dropping the final two.
No team that lost its final three games has ever reached the Super Bowl and the Saints have never played in the NFL championship spectacle, but both hexes could end next weekend to delight a city still hurting from Hurricane Katrina.
“These fans, they deserve a championship. We’re going to try to give it to them,” said Brees, who completed 23 of 32 passes for 247 yards.
Indianapolis, trying to match the 1968 Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers by winning a title after two season-ending losses, was criticized for resting starters and squandering a chance at a perfect season.
Manning completed 8 of 10 passes for 75 yards in an eight-minute march that ended with a 10-yard touchdown pass to Austin Collie with two minutes to play.
Then the Colts forced a punt and Manning struck again on a three-yard touchdown pass to Reggie Wayne three seconds before the end of the second quarter, giving the Colts a 17-3 edge.
“We came out playing really well from the get-go and that set the tempo of the game,” Manning said.
The Colts, seeking a second title in four years, had been 0-3 when playing after a bye.
“It’s about executing or whether you have had a bye before,” Manning said. “There was this myth we can’t win at home after a bye. I didn’t believe that. We didn’t win those games after a bye because we just didn’t play well enough.”
Brees and Bush powered the NFL’s most potent offense past a team that came within seconds of winning last year’s Super Bowl, ensuring New Orleans would host a conference final for the first time in the club’s 43-year history.
Saints coach Sean Payton was so concerned bout aggressiveness after the bye that he had 60 black wooden baseball bats made for players as souvenirs of the game, emphasizing their need to “bring the wood” against the Cardinals.
“We knew this had to be a physical game. It was important we came out early being physical,” Payton said. “We played with a lot of energy.”
“Only for special games do we do that, bring the wood,” Brees said. “This was obviously a special game.”
Brees tossed his touchdown passes in the highest-scoring first half in NFL playoff history to give the Saints a 35-14 half-time lead, New Orleans setting a club record for most points in a playoff game with half the contest to come.
Arizona seized the lead on Tim Hightower’s 70-yard touchdown run just 19 seconds into the game, but the Saints answered on Lynell Hamilton’s one-yard touchdown run and Brees flipped a 17-yard touchdown pass to Jeremy Shockey to give the Saints the lead for good.
Bush boosted the Saints’ lead to 21-7 with a 46-yard touchdown run but the Cardinals responded with Beanie Wells capping a touchdown march on a four-yard run.
Just 2:52 later, the Saints faked a run and Brees took a lateral and flipped a 44-yard touchdown pass to Devery Henderson to give New Orleans a 28-14 edge. Brees found Marques Colston on a two-yard touchdown pass 70 seconds before half-time.
Bush added an 83-yard punt return touchdown and Garrett Hartley kicked a 43-yard field goal in the third quarter, boosting the Saints’ lead to 45-14, and the New Orleans defense shut down the Cardinals from there.
“Reggie really played well, showed a lot of dimensions,” Brees said.
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