Saints offensive guard Carl Nicks has proven to be a powerful run blocker and key cog in pass protection for New Orleans since joining the team as a 2008 fifth-round draft pick. The Nebraska product started every game this season and helped pave the way for a potent rushing attack that is averaging 119.5 yards per game in the playoffs. In his first Super Bowl Diary for NFLPLAYERS.COM, Nicks talks about the Saints being an underdog and provides details of the craziest week of his life.

Let me start by saying that last week wasthe craziest time of my whole life. I don’t really know how to react to everything because it’s only my second year in the NFL and here we are in the Super Bowl. The biggest game I’ve ever played in was the Cotton Bowl, and that’s certainly not the biggest bowl out there, so I can’t even compare the two. The only thing that’s the same is that you get extra days off leading up to the game, other than that the preparation for Super Bowl is simply like no other. The Super Bowl is the biggest football game on the planet and this is what every kid dreams of.

We’re in this game because we beat a great Vikings team. After that game, I met up with my family who was in town. I hung out with my parents, sister and a bunch of family at the house and we watched the game on TV together and celebrated the victory. It was neat to watch the game and be able to reflect on how I got to this point and to see what we did to win the game.

The rest of last week was really busy. We had about three practices and a bunch of meetings, but I’d say that the biggest difference between last week and the normal NFL week is the media. There’s a lot more obligations to fulfill with the media and there are plenty of distractions. They keep telling us that when we get to Miami to not get trapped in the partying, but to focus and treat it like a business trip.

From talking to the other guys, everyone is just really geeked and excited about playing in the Super Bowl. Usually the O-linemen go out to dinner each Thursday but we skipped it last week and will get together this week. The hardest thing we’ve all been dealing with is ticket requests. It’s like people say, everyone from your second cousins to people you barely spoke to in high school are trying to get tickets from you. I just relayed the message to everyone that just immediate family is getting tickets because they’re the ones who have supported me since day one.

When I’ve gotten the chance, I’ve watched some of the hype on TV like on ESPN, and it seems like the Colts are playing against themselves because you see so much stuff about Peyton Manning. I think it’s kind of funny that some people are writing us off, but we’ve been dealing with that all season so it’s no big deal.

We’ll get into Miami on Monday and I’ll be packed with everything I need. One of the more important things I’ll have is my laptop so I can watch some movies during downtime and watch some cut-ups of the Colts’ defense. We put in bits and pieces of our game plan in last week so that when we get to Miami we can treat it like a regular work week as much as possible and then implement the full game plan. The purpose of that is because we want everything to be fresh in our minds come gameday.

Well I think I covered a lot, so I’ll check back shortly after Media Day.

- As told to NFLPLAYERS.COM’s Mike Donnelly