Let the Saints March On

The New Orleans Saints are 11-0, and are playing like the Super Bowl is a definite possibility. Any doubts to their legitimacy were removed, at least in my mind, when they thrashed a very good New England Patriots team last Monday night. This year's Saints team is good in all phases of the game, and quarterback Drew Brees is having a season that could make a Manning brother envious.

I've been told by a friend in New Orleans that the city is totally consumed with "Saints fever". And she has good reason to be. The franchise is historically one of the N.F.L.'s worst, at least in terms of on-the-field success. Founded in 1967 as an expansion team, it took the Saints ten years to achieve a .500 season. It took another decade after that to have their first winning season. The team has only made the playoffs five times in their 32 year existence. The Saints are one of only five teams in the N.F.L. that have never played in the Super Bowl. I'd say the people of south Louisiana have a right to be excited.

I've been a Saints fan for a while, which is kind of unusual in central Alabama. Professional football is not important in this state. Alabama is college football territory--period. The average Alabamian will usually tell you that they just don't like the N.F.L.--that it doesn't have the excitement or the enthusiasm that the college version of the game entails. These same people might gather with some friends to watch the Super Bowl on T.V. each year, but that's about the extent of their interest in professional football.

It's not that we haven't tried hosting professional football in Alabama before. Birmingham has fielded several teams in ill-fated leagues over the years. The most successful attempt was the 1974 Birmingham Americans of the World Football League, who actually won the first and only "World Bowl", defeating the Florida Blazers 22-21. That team's victory celebration was regrettably short-lived: the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department seized their uniforms and equipment for unpaid debts in the locker room after the game.

My interest in Saints football began in 1986 when I was a graduate student at LSU. My wife worked at a large insurance company in Baton Rouge, and the company gave her a pair of tickets to a game. It was my first NFL experience, and I became a fan of the professional game as I watched Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino rip the Saints defense to shreds with his amazing passing skills. I had been to many college games previously, including some of Bear Bryant's great University of Alabama National Championship teams, but the skill level of the professional players was way above anything I had ever seen.

I had to wait a year for the next pair of free tickets (graduate students were poor back in those days). Unfortunately we had car trouble on the way to New Orleans. Instead of witnessing another Saints whipping, we spent about four hours on the side of I-10 somewhere between Laplace and Kenner. The rest of the day was spent being towed back to Baton Rouge. Those were, as they say, "the good old days".

Since then my Saints watching has been only via television. I watched and cheered along with many others across the nation in 2006, the year when the Superdome reopened after Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans needed something to cheer for after that nightmare, and that team was something to be proud of. They were close that year, eventually losing to the Chicago Bears in the NFC Championship game.

This just may be the year the Saints finally make it to the Super Bowl. They may even win it. If so, I hope a certain eternal destination has some winter clothes in stock--because if the old saying holds true, it may be about to "freeze over".