Congratulations to the New Orleans Saints for winning Super Bowl XLIV. It would have been great to see Indianapolis win another Super Bowl, but seeing the Saints win their first NFL Title is something special, especially to everyone in Louisiana and the entire Gulf Coast who suffered from Hurricane Katrina nearly five years ago. This is a franchise who had a history of some players who ended up being all-pro (Archie Manning, Billy Kilmer,Bobby Hebert, George Rogers, Willie Roaf, Dalton Hillard, Ruben Mayes, Stan Brock)and even in the Pro Football Hall of Fame (Doug Atkins, Earl Campbell and the first true Saints who is going inducted it this year's hall of fame: Rickey Jackson) the teams that they played for were horrible to say the least. For example, from 1971, the year that Manning was drafted by the Saints until the end of the decade, New Orleans reached .500 once, and the season that happened (1979), they didn't even make the playoff. It wasn't until the Saints 20th season (1987) that they made it to the postseason. For example, from the year that Manning was drafted by the Saints (1971) to 1979, New Orleans posted one winning season (the '79 season) and even then, they didn't make the playoffs . As a result of their inability to win games, specifically in the 1980 season where the Saints lost their first 14 games, fans wore paper bags over their faces at home game and called the 'aints. Who knew that the idea of wearing a paper bag would catch on and is still used by sports fans to this day.
Playoffs???!!
It wasn't until 1987 when New Orleans made it to the postseason. Under the tenure of Coach Jim Mora (1986-1996), the Saints made it to the playoffs four times, including winning the NFC West Division Title in 1991. However, the postseason was not a fun experience for the team because they didn't win a playoff game in those four seasons. After two lackluster seasons, Mora, fed up and frustrated by the team's losing ways, left the Saints in 1996. Two years later, Mora resurfaced as the new head coach of the Indianapolis Colts. Meanwhile the Saints went through a number of head coaches such as Rick Venturi, Mike Ditka ( a fun and entertaining experiment but it wasn't successful) and Jim Haslett. In Haslett's first year (1999), the Saints won the NFC West and their first playoff in team history, but that was the only real bright spot during his time with the Saints and he was fired in 2006. Sean Payton took over the position a year after New Orleans went through a tragic hurricane that destroyed the city and devastated its residents.
Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath
Hurricane Katrina left so much death and destruction in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in its wake in late August 2005. As a result of the hurricane, a lot of people lost everything including their homes, and the Louisiana Superdome because a place of refuge for the citizens of New Orleans, even though the dome was damaged to began with. Right before the start of the 2005 season, the National Football League announced that the Saints would play their "home opener" against the New York Giants at Giants Stadium, and the remainder of their "home games" at Baton Rouge and the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. Ironically, Tom Benson thought about the idea of relocating the Saints franchise to San Antonio or possibly to Los Angeles for good.
You have to commend the Saints players, coaches and the whole organization for going through a season like that because going through a tragic like Katrina, there is no way you can focus on playing football (the team went 3-13 that season.)
The Homecoming
In January 2006, then-NFL Commissioner Paul Taligabue announced that the Saints will play all eight of their home games at the Louisiana Superdome during the upcoming season. On September 25, 2006, the Saints play their first real home game at New Orleans in two years against the Atlanta Falcons in front of 70,003 fans at the Superdome during a Monday Night Football telecast ( the Saints beat Atlanta 23-3.) That was the start of a magical season for the Saints. Under the leadership of Coach Payton and recently signed free agent Drew Brees, New Orleans won the NFC South Division, defeated the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC Divisional Playoffs but lost to the Chicago Bears in the NFC Championship. Despite the loss, you could get a sense that the Saints can experience this feeling again someday with a different result and fast forward three years later, the Saints are NFL Champions.
Summary
The win is big for the city of New Orleans, the state of Louisiana and everyone in the Gulf Coast because they have been through so much tragedy and turmoil with losing people and valuable possessions. New Orleans is a part town anyway and with Mardi Gras coming up, it looks like the city is going to have one long party in the month of February. With this win, you hope that this will bring some spotlight back to the city and the Gulf Coast region because there are still a lot of people who are still living in trailers instead of houses, even though there have been a number of houses that were built and folks were able to move in them since 2006. The city of New Orleans is not all the way back, but it is still getting there and hopefully people would remind themselves that there is more work to do for the city and the region in order to get back what they had prior to Hurricane Katrina.
