Eleven months to go in the year, and there's nothing left. Not after the Super Bowl. Not after this Super Bowl. Not after the way America got what it wanted and New Orleans got what it needed.

Not after the joy a football game event brought to a region, indeed to a nation, both of which could use a little joy.

We're a funny audience, the sporting public, critical, doubting, second-guessing. Nobody goes to the opera and wonders why on a particular evening the soprano nearly swallowed high C. Too bad, we say. Poor lady. Our reaction is sympathy.

But in sports we're looking for the jugular. Peyton Manning in a few hours, really a few minutes, went from brilliant to bum. Sunday Morning he was on the cover of the New York Times sports page, a huge photo, a headline, "The Grandmaster's Next Move.'' By Sunday evening he was under the bus.

He didn't play his best game for the Indianapolis Colts. He didn't play his worst. He swallowed high C. Yet only the people in Indy were unhappy. Only the Colts fans had a complaint. The rest of the country was delighted. For the ravaged people of New Orleans. For itself.

Eleven months to go, and we've had our highlight for 2010. Who cares what happens in the Winter Olympics? Or when Tiger Woods finally shows up at a tournament? Or if Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta actually race against each other?

The Super Bowl fulfilled all our wishes. It was compelling, exciting and rewarding. Even in you were a Colts fan. The Colts did nothing to embarrass themselves. They just got outplayed and outmaneuvered - - loved that onside kick, which is a type of tactic the team that's not favored always should use - and in the end outscored.

Someone back in the early 1970s, when we still were trying to put the Super Bowl into perspective - labeled it "The Great Time Out.'' In Australia, they call the Melbourne Cup, the annual thoroughbred battle, "The Race that Stops a Nation.'' This Super Bowl XLIV certainly brought the U.S. to a halt.

We love an underdog. David vs. Goliath still ranks up there with the best tales we've ever heard. Think of the stories that exhort those with no chance, "The Little Engine That Could,'' the boy with his finger in the dike. The stories which tell us strange things happen, so never quit.

The Saints never quit. New Orleans never quit. "Four and a half years ago the city was under water,'' said Drew Brees, the Saints MVP quarterback. Now the city is celebrating. A sporting victory does not compensate for lives and property lost in a hurricane, but it brings a smile and a cheer when there is mostly gloom.

"New Orleans,'' said Saints owner Tom Benson, "is back.''

To a point. Benson wanted to move the Saints back in those water-logged days. Wanted a new place to play other than the Superdome, which had its roof taken off by the wind and some said its soul ripped away by the people who sought refuge there.

But the Saints, after shuttling about while the dome was being restored, stayed in New Orleans. The only place they were going, it turns out, was to the championship of the NFL.

Maybe Lindsey Vonn skis repeatedly to gold. Maybe a team other than the Yankees or Red Sox wins the American League pennant. It's not going to top the Saints, the perennial losers, winning the Super Bowl.

America loved it and that showed in the TV ratings. The most viewers, 106.5 million, a third of the country, watched that Super Bowl, overtaking the final episode of M*A*S*H, almost exactly 27 years earlier, February 28, 1983.

We were mesmerized then. We were mesmerized now. This Super Bowl was a passion play, a study in perseverance. It was a team whose fans used to put bags over their heads coming back from a 10-point deficit in the first quarter. It was a city struggling from disappointment and reaching the sky.

Drew Brees was unwanted by the San Diego Chargers. They let him slip away, a free agent. He was injured. He was disparaged. But he never was discouraged. A city that had known too much discouragement on the field found its savior.

It doesn't happen often like this, a quarterback, a franchise, a comeback, an achievement. Blame Peyton Manning? Better to credit the Saints. They've made 2010 a year to remember, and there still are 11 months to go.