Matt Stover, at 42 the oldest player in NFL, gave Colts a 3-0 lead on a 38-yard field goal.
Peyton Manning hit Pierre Garcon on a 19-yard TD pass to give the Colts a 10-0 lead.
The Saints got on the board with a 45-yard field goal by Garrett Hartley to make it 10-3.
Hartley kicked a 44yard field goal on the final play of he first half to make the halftime score 10-6.
Drew Brees threw a 16-yard pass to Pierre Thomas to give the Saints a 13-10 lead/\.
Joseph Addai (LSU) ran in a 4-yard TD as the Colts took the lead back 17-13
A 47-yard field goal by Hartley narrowed it to 17-16.
Brees hit Jeremy Shockey on a 2-yard TD pass to make it 24-17 after a 2-point pass to Lance Moore.
Tracy Porter intercepted a Manning pass and returned it 76 yards for a TD and a 31-17 lead.
Drew Brees MVP
After the game, Brees held his one-year-old son, Baylen, in his arms before hoisting the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
Brees and the Saints moved up to elite status in the NFL. He completed 32 of 39 passes for 288 yards with two touchdowns.. He tied a Super Bowl record set by Tom Brady with 32 completions
Eight Saints caught passes, five catching at least three. Marques Colston had a team-high seven catches, including a first-quarter drop that cost the Saints at least a field goal in the first quarter. That drop cost Brees a Super Bowl record.
Hartley became the first kicker in Super Bowl history with three field goals of 40 yards or longer with kicks of 47, 46 and 44 yards.
"It's unbelievable, incredible," said Brees in his postgame discussion.
How the national media saw the game:
Peter King, SI.com: "It's right, it's fair, it's just good, it's shocking. You were not dreaming (or nightmaring, if you live in Indiana). The Saints have won the Super Bowl.
"As the team bus -- the one with mostly family and friends of the team -- sped from the stadium to the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Miami for the most raucous of postgame parties, this merry band of Saints partisans sang and chanted and Who-Dat to their heart's content. On this bus was an eclectic mix, just like New Orleans itself. A couple of seats from the front was the political couple who live in New Orleans, James Carville and Mary Matalin. Behind them sat the 97-year-old archbishop of New Orleans, Philip Hannan, a good friend of owner Tom Benson. In the back was Reggie Bush and his famous-for-being-famous girlfriend, Kim Kardashian.
Don Banks, SI.com: "Of course it was a comeback. It had to be, didn't it? How else could the New Orleans Saints and Drew Brees have ended this story and this season, but to rise up and triumph only after first weathering a storm of sorts?
"New Orleans, the city that survived a death blow from Katrina, and Brees, the quarterback whose career was jeopardized by a horribly-timed shoulder injury just as he sought to make a real name for himself in the NFL, withstood one last dose of adversity Sunday night at Sun Life Stadium. But what's a 10-0 first-quarter deficit in the Super Bowl when you've already been where Brees and New Orleans have been?"
SOME HITHER, OTHERS YON: Montana, Unitas, Manning go 1-2-3 for best quarterback in a quick survey of Hall of Fame voters. In an impromptu survey of the 50 Hall of Fame electors this past week, 17 of the 18 to respond put Joe Montana among the top five quarterbacks in NFL history, Seven voters put him No. 1 over-all, more than any other. Unitas was a top-five pick of 15 voters and No. 1 with five. Peyton Manning was third in both categories -- top five with 14 votes, No.1 with 2, but he was the top choice for the quarterback in his prime that voters would build a team around. He gathered seven of those votes to Montana's four and Unitas' three. Montana declined to rank himself or anyone else. "I don't line up quarterbacks," said Montana. "I just think it's too hard to do with the difference in generations."
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