During my second trip to the Superdome in seven days, I just had to marvel at how things have changed in my lifetime of watching the Saints.
Sunday night the Saints routinely disposed of the Detroit Lions 31-17, helped along by their opponent’s determination to self-destruct play by play. Has any receiver gotten called for three offensive interferences in one game, or was Nate Burleson determined to have this record all to himself? Somehow the Lions accumulated enough yardage to go up and down the field almost 6 times, but only scored 17 points, repeatedly shooting themselves in the foot. However, the Lions showed enough talent to make it ok with me if we don’t have to play them in the playoffs.
In the meantime Drew Brees continued his assault on Marino’s yardage record that seems like it will only be derailed if he sits and rests in the final game of the season. Winning their 4th straight game, a feat it will be nice to repeat at year-end, puts them on pace to duplicate the magical 13-3 record of 2009 if they don’t stumble. Wouldn’t that be something?
I confess, there was a moment after the Saints scored one of their touchdowns when I didn’t get crunk. I was crunkless. Now if you haven’t been to a Saints game in the last 3 years you don’t know what I mean by crunk, and to be honest with you I’m not sure that I know what I mean. It’s a form of 7 point Saints euphoria that just seems to fit the city that care forgot about as perfectly as gumbo. It involves a song, a lot of singing and waving of arms that I haven’t really perfected and am not sure I want to. So I didn’t stand up and get crunk. I just sat there. I just wanted to look around and marvel at the atmosphere in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.
First I marveled that despite the renovations, the luxury name enhancement, and my expensive plaza ticket, I still was without a luxury cup holder. That’s all I really want now. I have a Superbowl and the wardrobe that comes with it, proclaiming that I am a world champion. I just want a cup holder so I don’t have to stand in spilled drink. For some reason the Superdome is the open-container capital of the sports world. No plastic tops, no caps allowed. I guess we could not be prevented from hurling plastic caps onto the field, although I don’t know about you but my record for hurling a plastic drink top is about 5 yards. Thus when you are required to stand up and get crunk, you set your drink on the floor and there is a 36% chance you will kick it over within 5 minutes and stand in it during subsequent crunks. If we could get Mercedes-Benz to spring for cup-holders I swear I’ll buy a Mercedes just as soon as I can afford it.
Anyway, in my state of non-crunkiness during which I chose to hold my diet coke rather than wave my arms I realized that we had experienced a real paradigm shift. The most fun I’d had was in that 13-0 start we had on the way to the Superbowl. It was completely unknown territory, like the Packers are enjoying right now. But, in the sixth year of the Payton/Brees era I remembered how Payton always wanted to emulate the Patriots organizational consistency. Well here’s what’s cool:
The Saints expect to win.
The Fans expect to win.
The commentators expect the Saints to win.
The bettors expect the Saints to win.
The Saints are much more likely to win than lose. They, like all teams throw in a stinker (Rams) from time to time, but those are pretty rare.
The paradigm has shifted. We are an elite program with elite personnel from top to bottom. We pluck the unheralded (Jimmy Graham) and the heralded (Mark Ingram) and the undervalued (Darren Sproles) and we’re officially re-loaded.
Sure, anyone that watches the Saints knows we could still use some help on defense, but there are only a few defenses in the NFL – the Ravens, year after year or until Lewis and Reed retire, the Steelers most of the time, and the 49’ers this year. And it’s impossible to play defense in the NFL anyway, when the referees have one hand in their pocket and the league office is doling out fines on their own new paradigm.
So, it’s not just that we’re spoiled. Fast forward 10 years and we’ll be saying of our quarterback, “He’s no Drew Brees,” because he won’t be. After all how often does one Hall of Fame QB follow immediately behind another? It just doesn’t happen, except in Green Bay, and I sure hope they appreciate their good fortune. But I’ve got news for the Pack, barring a “stinker” (like Seattle last year) The Saints are coming.
Next, the Saints are off to Tennessee where Chris Johnson is just wrapping up training camp and Matt Hasselback is undoubtedly having flashbacks to that playoff torching of the Saints last year. The Saints have improved at stopping the run but put so little pressure on the quarterback that 400 yard games are the norm, and Brees and the offense must score constantly. Which they do. It’s the new paradigm.
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