New Orleans Saints Couldn't Repeat, but Green Bay Packers Surely Can

"Let me be the first to predict that the Packers will win it all again next year."

No, it isn't me who said this. I read that quote last Monday in Ross Tucker's Twitter account.

"So tough to repeat," admitted the former NFL lineman and now ESPN.com analyst, "but they can do it."

That's a big statement. Only eight teams have won back-to-back Super Bowls, so it's actually "safer" to say the Packers won't get their fifth Vince Lombardi trophy next year than bet for them.

But Tucker could be right.

I know, many said the same about the Saints last year and they lost a playoff game against an opponent with a regular season losing record.

But there are some key differences between New Orleans 2009 and Green Bay 2010 that make me share (in part) Tucker's point of view.

1. New Orleans was a surprise, Green Bay was a contender

Let's go back to the 2009 preseason.

The Saints were coming from an 8-8 season and few pundits considered them among the favorites to win the Super Bowl. Brett Favre's Vikings, the defending champion Arizona Cardinals and the perennially overrated Dallas Cowboys were the popular picks in the NFC.

However, the Saints shocked everybody thanks to the big improvement of their defense and became a legitimate threat during the season.

What goes up must come down, especially when it goes up so fast.

On the other hand, we knew the Packers were really good since the beginning. Green Bay was the NFC's favorite in many preseason predictions (personally, Ravens-Packers was my pick in August) and they proved their supporters right.

It wasn't the case of a team that makes a big leap in one year, but a team that progressed during three years until becoming the best one of the league.

2. New Orleans avoided injuries, Green Bay won despite them

This is probably the key difference.

We heard a lot during this season how the Saints had been lucky in 2009 about not losing many players due to injuries, but that totally changed in 2010. The injury bug caught them (especially in the running-backs area) with devastating effects.

Meanwhile, Green Bay probably suffered as many or more injuries than the Saints this season, losing key players like Ryan Grant, Jermichael Finley, Nick Barnett and Brad Jones during the season.

Heck, they lost Donald Driver and Charles Woodson in the middle of the Super Bowl.

But the Packers kept finding replacements in their roster. They even visited the New England Patriots (who in the previous weeks had trashed, well, almost every other contender) without Aaron Rodgers and were very close to winning.

3. New Orleans peaked at the right time, Green Bay was consistently good

This sounds weird, considering New Orleans were the No. 1 seed of the NFC with a 13-3 record and Green Bay made it to the playoffs as No. 6 with 10-6.

But it actually makes sense.

The Saints had a terrific start in 2009, winning their first 13 games of the schedule and reviving the "perfect season" discussion alongside the Indianapolis Colts.

However, after dismantling the Patriots in Week 12, the Saints ended the regular season in a less fashionable way. They barely beat the Redskins and the Falcons before losing their last three matches against the Cowboys, the Buccaneers and the Panthers.

Lucky for them, the bye week allowed Drew Brees and company to bounce back and enter the playoffs at their best. They would have never been able to beat the Vikings or the Colts playing like they did during Weeks 13 through 17.

The Packers may have lost six games, but they were competitive in each one of them. They never trailed by more than seven points in the entire regular season, which is probably one of the most impressive NFL facts ever.

Like the 2005 Steelers and the 2007 Giants, these Packers won three road games in their path to the Super Bowl. The difference is that those teams got several upsets, while this year we knew in each round that the Packers were good enough to win.

It wasn't a surprise to see them beat the Steelers because they proved during the entire season that they were that good.

There are other factors that benefit Green Bay: they have a young core, free agency won't affect them much and Aaron Rodgers should keep improving (and he already is a top-five QB).

Of course, we still don't know if there will be a 2011 season and many things will change in the next 12 months, but right now, the Packers seem to have the best chance to back-to-back championships any team has had in years.

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