One of the fringe benefits of winning a championship is that you get to piss a bunch of people off in the process. And then you get to laugh at them.

For as many new fans as the Saints picked up during their championship run, they were inevitably going to pick up a large number of brand new haters as well. Which has to be disconcerting to certain esteemed members of our local media, who have never been too keen on increasing competition in the first place. But for us Saints fans? It's big fun.

One of the bedrock principles on which this here blog has always been based is that you know you're doing something right if the people you're pissing off are pretty much invariably huge bags of douche. The Saints seem to be doing a bang up job of that these days as well.

I'm sure you've already been hipped to the trilogy of troglodytic tripe served up in the first few days after the Super Bowl at one of those blogfarm sites where Message Board Guy goes to pretend to be a real live "sportswriter." If you haven't, holy shit have you missed out on some high comedy. Let's go ahead and remedy that right now.

First up, we have the inevitable "The Fix was in!" offering from some guy named Charles Kellett. Evidently, this "Colt fan of almost 40 years" is completely unaware of the Manning Face phenomenon, and upon seeing it for the first time, was downright flummoxed. But by golly, by the end of the game, I'll be damned if he hadn't figured out the entire conspiracy:

I did not understand that scowl that Peyton Manning had on his face when he walked into the stadium.  I thought maybe he was tired of the cameras in his face, or that it was a put-on, however, in hindsight, I think he was told that the fix was in for the Saints to win.

Oh yeah, no question about it. How could I not have realized what it obviously meant? Clearly this wasn't just your ordinary, run of the mill Manning Face. No sir. This is the face of a man who had just been hipped to the dirty little secret that "America wanted the Saints to win" and that, come hell or high water, The League was gonna give The People what they wanted.

Of course! It's all so clear now! I mean, what other explanation could there be? Surely it couldn't have been anything like what our friend defibrillaTed inferred when he beheld the power of the Manning Face:

When I saw him walking into the stadium, I called complete bullshit. That was such preening for the camera. I'm sure he could hear in his head as he was walking John Facenda's voice, "Peyton Manning's steely determination would will the Indianapolis Colts to their second Super Bowl Championship in four years. He is a god."

Naaaah. Couldn't have been that. Peyton Manning mugging for the camera? Absurd!

Of course, not everybody at Bleacher Report is a Colts fan, and not everybody believes Manning was just an innocent pawn in The League's scandalous machinations. No, at least one of 'em seems pretty sure that Manning is the NFL's answer to Shoeless Joe Jackson.

Behold Brian Tuohy, Jets Fan, who's pretty sure Peyton Manning is a crook. Not that Brian, the Jets fan, has an ax to grind or anything. Nah, dude's just calling it like he sees it. Or something.

Brian agrees with his colleague Charles that Sunday's was a Very Special Manning Face indeed. But Brian believes that not only was Manning aware of the conspiracy, he was in on it. He took a dive, for some reason.

Oh, he wasn't happy about it. Just look at that Manning Face! But by golly, he sucked it up and took one for The League. Why? Well, for New Orleans, of course. See, I'm not sure if you've heard, but Peyton Manning is kinda from New Orleans. And Brian figures that Peyton signed on to take the dive because it'd be just a swell way to give something back to his beloved hometown with little to no out-of-pocket expense on his part.

I mean, after all, it was just a football game. Right? That's how Brian figures Peyton saw it:

Manning has had his rewards. He has his multi-million dollar contract, his four MVPs, his own Super Bowl ring, and a bust waiting for him in Canton. Will this loss affect his legacy? Not in the least. 

And that may be exactly why he'd lose a simple football game. Perhaps he knows how football in the NFL is played. And it's not as the fans believe.

I mean, can't you just hear the conversation? I bet it went down a little something like this: 

Well golly gee shucks, you know, you make an awful good point there, Mister Commish. I ain't got no use for a second Super Bowl ring anyhow. I mean, I done done it all. Losin' this here game don't make no difference I reckon. That is, long as Brian Tuohy don't come along and expose me as a fraud and a shill. Which he probably will, 'cause ain't nobody ever pulled the wool over that there fella's eyes 'bout nothin'. But naw, I'm sure you're right. Ain't nobody gonna figure it out, and I ain't got no problem with everybody goin' right back to thinkin' I'm one of the world's biggest chokers instead of the Greatest Of All Time. You got yerself a deal there, mister. I'll do it. For New Orleans. What could possibly go wrong?

But why would the NFL want the Saints to win so badly that they'd risk the future of the entire league by compromising its competitive integrity and fixing the Super Bowl? Why, for the sake of tee vee ratings of course!

I believe the league fixes the outcomes of their own games for TV ratings and the billions of dollars of profit attached to them. And I'm not alone.

Super Bowl XLIV may just be a case in point.  The ratings were certainly there. Aided by the snowstorm that crippled part of the east coast, Sunday's game was the most watched football game ever, giving the NFL its highest television ratings in its history. In fact, it was the most watched program in U.S. television history.

The NFL's partner on Sunday, CBS, was a winner as well.  Besides raking in $3 million for each 30-second commercial, CBS and its advertising partners were quite happy to see a tightly played game not be determined until well into the fourth quarter. Keeping the fans at home glued to their TV's as long as possible is exactly what CBS would hope for.

Don't you just love it when people talk about stuff they clearly don't know jack shit about? I guess Brian figures nobody would have watched if the Saints hadn't won. Except that they didn't find out who won until after they'd watched, which is kinda how it always works. Or maybe Brian thinks that had the Colts won this year's Super Bowl, the price of ad spots for next year's Super Bowl would have tanked. For some reason that I'm sure makes perfect sense.

But hey, don't take Brian's word for it. He's got FACTS to prove it! See, on the day before the Super Bowl, Brian was checking out habitual shit-stirrer Mike Florio's mindbogglingly useless web site Pro Football Talk, where they had exposed a SHOCKING(!!!!) and scandalous mistake by one of ESPN's web monkeys. Apparently a poll question was posted to ESPN.com which asked voters to pick the best of the quarterbacks with one Super Bowl ring. One of the choices? Drew Brees!

Holy shit! ESPN already knew that the Saints were going to win! What other logical conclusion could there be? Certainly not that they had pre-produced content based on both outcomes to have ready for consumption immediately after the game, or that whoever made the poll mistakenly thought that Drew had already won a Super Bowl before this year. Brian actually gives those possibilities some passing consideration, but quickly concludes that they're a little too far-fetched. Clearly it's far more likely that the NFL had already given ESPN's web monkeys the heads up.

I mean, what could possibly go wrong? If you can't trust an entry-level web site editor to keep a lid on a conspiracy which could bring down a billion dollar industry if it were to be exposed, then by golly who can you trust?

Yet as the poll question made the rounds online prior to kickoff, ESPN quickly yanked the offending poll from its website. All links to it (and there were plenty, including profootballtalk.com's and one on cbssports.com) were directed to ESPN's homepage.

Well that sure is suspicious. Clearly it's a cover-up! I mean, if it was just an innocent mistake, why go to all the trouble of rectifying it?

Now that there's what I call some critical thinkin'. Guh. Doesn't it just make you want to slit your own wrist with Occam's Razor?

And then there's this steaming pile of pearl-clutching and righteous indignation from some douchebag named Steve Montana. Hey, to his credit, at least he doesn't think the fix was in. Steve just thinks that the Saints' onside kick to start the second half was cheap and sleazy. Why? Because it undermined the equity of… the coin toss. Oh, I shit you not.

See, as far as Steve's concerned, the coin toss is sacred. One team gets the ball at the start of the first half and the other team gets the ball at the start of the second half. Simple as that. After all, it's only fair. To attempt an onside kick any other time is just fine, but for some reason, to attempt one at the start of a half is tantamount to renegging on an agreement. By golly, it's stealing!

Steve goes on to assert that it really wasn't much of a gamble by Sean Payton anyway. The Colts were gonna score regardless, so what does it matter whether the Colts started their drive from the Saints' 40 or their own 1? The result would have been the same, so what's the downside for Payton? Clearly it was a no-brainer.

But he still shouldn't have done it. He promised the Colts the ball when he elected to receive the opening kickoff, after all. He PROMISED!

(And while we're on the subject, why did the Saints get to call the heads/tails in the first place? Did they win a previous coin toss? Did they get to call it on that one too? How was that determined? Was it yet another previous coin toss?)

While many see Sean Payton's gamble as a tribute to his genius and will hail him for his aggressiveness, I see it as blemish on an otherwise respectable game between two evenly-matched teams.

To be a true champion, you play the game between the lines. There is no need to resort to cheap tricks.

We have no idea when Steve thinks onside kicks started taking place outside the lines. What we do know is that Steve thinks that saying the word "heads" or the word "tails" is far more in line with the true spirit of football than… you know… making a play.

He also doesn't seem to think it makes any difference that the Saints "stole" the ball from the Colts only after a Colts player had touched it first. You know, kinda like they'd have touched it first on a regular kickoff. One can only conclude that Steve thinks the Saints would have been equally guilty of such "cheap and dirty" theft had they kicked it deep and Chad Simpson had muffed or fumbled it.

But hey, these guys are just douchebags with blogs. And not even real blogs. Sites like Bleacher Report are basically glorified message boards, which is why they tend to attract Message Board Guy to serve as their "columnists" or "correspondents" or "contributors" or some other word that makes Message Board Guy feel like he's a real by god sportswriter. It helps that evidently 90% of these sites' readers have been duped into thinking these fuckwits are actual "journalists" based on the frequency with which they throw that word around in the comments.

But it's not just mouthbreathers like Charles, Brian and Steve munching on hater tots and washing 'em down with some ice cold Haterade.

For reasons beyond comprehension, Mike Florio's Pro Football Talk seems to have fallen ass-backwards into some degree of what might be considered genuine credibility. How that happened is anybody's guess. Basically, Florio and crew run a Reader's Digest for Message Board Guys. They aggregate actual content from other sources, any source will do, and re-portion it into bite-sized blurbs that are easier to handle for barely-literate shitheads who have neither the inclination nor the ability to process more than about 100 words at a time.

But just summarizing is no fun, which is why Florio spices up his not-quite-plagiarism by making shit up "reading between the lines for you." You know, to "add value."

Things like "Good question. I don't know.  But this is the first time for this city, and it's special, obviously.  So special.  We want these moments to last as long as they can.  The celebration is so intense right now, and we wouldn't have it any other way, because this city and this franchise deserve it."

…magically become "Saints know they're partying too hard — and they don't seem to care"

You've gotta hand it to Florio, it's a brilliant racket. He knows that 90% of his audience won't bother to click the link to the source material to verify that his "interpretation" even remotely resembles the upshot of the… uh… actual content on which he piggybacks.

If you didn't know any better, you might think that Mickey Loomis made some kind of admission. "Yeah, we know we're gonna be totally unprepared for next year. But fuck it!" And on the off chance anybody pauses long enough to think to themselves "Wait, it's only been 8 fucking days, and it's gonna be another 3 weeks before anybody gets the ball rolling on next year anyway!" you can always reply with "Hey, don't blame me, Peter King said it!"

But the funniest of them all are the ones coming from actual NFL players. The Vikings are still crying. Not Vikings fans, not Vikings bloggers, not Minneapolis sportswriters. Oh, they're still crying too, but I'm talking about the actual Minnesota Vikings.

Specifically, DE Ray Edwards. Evidently, it took Ray three weeks to get hipped to the fact that the Saints' defense was ripping King Brett a new ass hole all night in the NFCCG. And he's not happy about it.

Don't blame Ray though for not evening the score. It's just that he doesn't really pay attention when the offense is on the field. If only he'd have known, by golly he'd have showed Drew the what for. But see, the Vikings' defense is so damned intensely focused on what they've gotta do, they're completely ignorant of what's happening on the field when they're on the sideline.

And for some reason, not once did a coach or an offensive reserve or anybody else pull him aside and let him know that the Saints were PLAYING DIRTY(!!!!!) Nope, not even once. If they had, you can bet that Ray would have taken care of that real quick. Right, Ray?

But evidently not even the offensive players on the field with Brett had any clue what was going on. Visanthe Shiancoe was shocked and appalled when he was made aware of this outrage as well. If only he'd have known! But don't blame Visanthe either. After all, he was out running routes and stuff. I mean, since when does a tight end pay attention to what's going on with his quarterback? It's not like it's any of his business.

Way to have your heads in the game there, Ray and Visanthe.

Seems pretty clear to me that it was all Brett's fault. If only he'd have said something. But hey, that's just Brett. Dude's way too tough to complain about the opposing defense playing dirty.

I'm sure Brett thought to himself "Well golly gee shucks, that's just good ole fashioned country style football right there. I don't wanna burden my teammates with this issue. I'll just deal with it myself. Say, why ain't nobody noticing me grimacing in pain over here? Somebody put a camera on this here bare foot of mine. Look, watch me put my shoe back on and limp back out on the field. Ain't I one tough sumbitch? Hey Visanthe, get out of the way, man! You're blocking the camera. Yeah, I'm fine, just get out of the fuckin' way and let those FOX dudes through!"

But Visanthe and Ray promise you this: They'll settle the score when the Vikings play the Saints this fall. That is, assuming somebody reminds them the date and time of the game. Oh, and assuming Brett comes back. If it's Tarvaris Jackson, they make no promises to really give a fuck one way or the other.

And if by some chance you're still reading, we'll leave you with NFL.com's ridiculously early power rankings for this fall.

Vic Carucci has the Saints at #5.
Steve Wyche has them at #4.
Joe Theezman has them at #2. Behind… the Packers?
And some guy named Bucky Brooks has them at…. #9. That's right, 9.

Awesome. It's good to be the king. The more you make fools of them, the more they try to stick it to ya by making bigger fools of themselves.