Mardi Gras is not starting early, at least the bare-chested portion of it isn’t. The New Orleans Saints’ Super Bowl parade, happening today at 5 PM, will be featuring some of the floats that were scheduled for use during the annual Bourbon Street celebration, but there won’t be any boobs.

TMZ spoke to cops in the French Quarter, who tell us 600 [police officers] will be on patrol at the big party … and anyone seen exchanging nudity for beads can expect a big, fat summons … or even a trip to the slammer.

Part of the decision to cover up surely stemmed from the fact that the parade will be broadcast live on regional cable, as well as the Times-Picayune website. People surely can wait a week to get reconnected with their breast friends in a week. That works; it’s not like boobs ever get stale. Also.

Here are two fun tidbits about the Saints big win from Sunday, starting with the two big stars that had shone brightest on football’s biggest stage. Specifically, quarterback Drew Brees and cornerback Tracy Porter.

Purdue alum Drew Brees was the MVP of the game, and Indiana alum Tracy Porter provided the straw that broke the camel’s back with his 70-yard interception return in the fourth quarter — courtesy of New Orleans native and Colts quarterback Peyton Manning, of course.

The symmetry and serendipity of it all is quite glorious. Especially when you consider the key play of the game when the Colts beat the Bears in Super Bowl XLI: an interception return for a touchdown by Chicago native and Illinois alum Kelvin Hayden. –Rumors & Rants.

And then there was this note about the Saints Super Bowl championship merchandise. So where are they manufacturing those shirts? Yep, in Indianapolis.

They will ship out 130,000 shirts a day, compared with a typical 65,000 to 70,000.

That means overtime for Deobalek Thomas, who was forlornly pulling long-sleeved gray Saints T-shirts off the screen printing press Monday, while wearing his 2007 Colts Super Bowl champions shirt.

“I would have rather worked three days and had the Colts win,” he said. “These aren’t the shirts I wanted to do.” – Indy Star, via Second-String Fullback.

And one could argue that those pale in comparison to the greatest irony of all, that Peyton Manning lost a Super Bowl to the team on which his father played and cemented his legacy, the same New Orleans Saints that Peyton watched and cheered on during his formative days in Louisiana. Who would have thought…it figures.

Update: Video is fixed.

Here’s that interception return from the Saints’ Tracy Porter, and I can’t remember the last time that I jumped up and down during a Super Bowl like I did as Porter was running down the field. After the game, Peyton Manning–who’s now being labeled as a choker again for some reason–stayed on message, repeating to reporters that Porter “made a great play” and refusing to elaborate. You can see Manning get into the ear of Reggie Wayne, the intended receiver, after the play. So who does Manning really blame? Obviously not himself…

SITE NEWS: I’m flying back from Vegas today, so posting will be a bit scattershot. Apologies all around.

The New Orleans Saints are your Super Bowl Champions. The Saints rode the momentum from an onside kick recovery to 25 second-half points and their first-ever NFL title, beating the Colts, 31-17, a score that one would have had to be a genius to predict.

“We just believed in ourselves and we knew that we had an entire city and maybe an entire country behind us,” said Brees, the game’s MVP. “What can I say? I tried to imagine what this moment would be like for a long time, and it’s better than expected.

“Four years ago who ever thought this would be happening when 85 percent of the city was under water from (Hurricane) Katrina?” Brees said. “Most people not knowing if New Orleans would ever come back or if the organization and the team would come back. … This is the culmination of that belief and that faith.”–Y! Sports.

The game was iced when Tracey Porter ran a Peyton Manning pass back 74 yards for another Saints TD and a 14-point lead. Manning’s subsequent drive stalled out and the celebration was on. The win is the culmination of a feel-good season for the Gulf region; if there’s anything that the city of New Orleans needed, it was another excuse to get totally drunk out of their minds.

Here’s a quite-creative-if-not-pantsdroppingly-cool video of how prominent directors in film might cover the Super Bowl. The Wes Anderson one is dead-on, and the Godard clip is quite humorous if gay Frenchmen are in your wheelhouse. Aw haw haw… Seriously, I’ve been to France, and I didn’t see a single heterosexual man the whole time I was there, which sort of explains why the NFL hasn’t really caught on there. It’s hard to get geared up for a football game when Pierre and Michel can’t get the buerre off each other’s baguettes. Slate V. Thanks, Matt.

A lot of people are bent out of shape about the fact that Tim Tebow and his advocacy group are getting a Super Bowl ad while other groups have been turned away in the past. Personally, I don’t really care about commercials that don’t feature pratfalls or shots to the groin. The insinuation of testicle damage is how I bond with corporate America.

But this group, the self-proclaimed Raging Grannies of South Florida, put together a nice counterpunch, it’s short, to the point, and features old women swearing. That combination will get you a post on this site every time. It’s much more effective than one of the other ads circulating around. Good job, grannies. I guess that old people, though slow and dangerous behind the wheel, can still serve a purpose!