Forty-three years.
Forty-yard field goal.
Five turnovers.
First Superbowl berth in franchise history.
This blog was a long time coming.
You’ll notice the Saints Guy went into mini hibernation before the NFC Championship. True story, I started a column titled “It’s a Favre-Manning Super Bowl” five days before the game after being sick of hearing how a) the Vikings were going to win, and b)there was no way Brett Favre could possibly lose this game. (Side note: I may have had three midterms to study for, too…)
Why did I shelve the blog? Frankly, I’d rather get it done on the field. I didn’t want to do anything “jinx-like,” as in write sarcastically about a Favre-Manning Super Bowl before the game. Let me tell you, it was hard. I listened for a solid week of how much the national media wanted Brett Favre and Peyton Manning to square off in the Super Bowl. It was tough.
I felt really bad by the fourth quarter of the NFC Championship game when the Vikings had all but doubled the yards on New Orleans. And then it crashed… the Vikings were in field goal range.
I knew.
I just knew.
Luckily, the Vikings knew it better than we did. I won’t waste your time; if you read this blog, you know how the game ended.
(Side note: Not to mention, Sunday also provided the single greatest football call of all time. Jim Henderson’s call of Garrett Hartley’s 40-yarder will live in infamy. It’s already been loaded into my phone as the ringtone, and it won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.)
What you need to know if how the Saints Guy reacted minutes after Hartley’s field goal split the uprights.
I cried.
Hard.
The Saints Babe was a little troubled. After all, I didn’t even cry at the altar on our wedding day. This was a sporting event. And two grown men were crying hard.
I sat with my head in my hands and wept for what seemed like an eternity. My insides were a mess; I knew it was stupid to cry. Seriously, Haiti had just lost over 100,000 people in a monster earthquake. I was embarrassed.
Until I figured out why.
Despite the waterworks, I called the radio show Sly hosts and made a startling declaration: it’s sort of foolish for people to cry over sporting events. This world is filled with crime, tragedy, disasters, you name it. Why should a 40-yard field goal reduce a man to tears?
My grandparents Poppus (Side note: I have NO IDEA how we spelled his grandfatherly moniker. Let’s stick with Poppus) and Mimi lived in a duplex built on to the side of the Saints Tot’s house many, many Saints quarterbacks ago (Think Richard Todd). I have few memories if any of my mother’s father. But he loved his Saints. So did my grandmother. In fact, they were both so frightened of either of their grandchildren taking up football that they conned me into the piano and my younger brother into… ummm… I guess they would have been fine with him playing.
Anyhow, one of my hardest memories came after my grandfather’s health had begun to slip. He wanted to wheel himself over to our side of the house to watch a Saints game with us. I went to my friend’s house instead after church. Poppus wheeled himself back to his side of the house as best he could since no one would watch the game with him. He died less than a month later.
Did my fingers tremble a little writing that last paragraph? Absolutely. I mean, Poppus never saw the Saints win a frackin’ playoff game. But year in and year out, he was ready to watch the season kick off. And what did the Saints give him in his last year on this earth? A 6-10 record, and a Heath Shuler, Billy Joe Hobert, and Danny Wuerffel turd sandwich. Three decades as a fan and no playoff wins.
See, that’s the difference between Saints fans and over 25 of the other teams in the National Football League. We still waited… and waited… and waited… faithfully waited.
Suddenly, a new millennium breathed new life into the Saints. They knocked off the defending Superbowl champion St. Louis Rams in their first playoff win in 2001. The following year, the Saints started the season 6-1 and looked to go into the promised land. They crapped the bed and ended up 9-7 and outside of the playoff race.
A few years later, Hurricane Katrina plowed through and nearly evacuated the Saints to Los Angeles or San Antonio permanently. The Saints Guy had actually tried to move to New Orleans a few weeks before, and long story short, ended up not going back. (Side note: Confession, I’m not from New Orleans. Put the gun down.) A weird funk settled over the Saints for the year en route to a 3-13 record and the second overall draft pick.And then the phone calls. Hoss, Sly, Skywalker, everyone calling each other… Drew Brees? Really? I thought we wanted Matt Leinart… You serious?
And then more phone calls a few weeks later. Same guys… Houston DID WHAT? DeMario Williams? So that means—you can’t be serious! Are we going to screw this up?
Nope. Drew Brees and Reggie Bush were going to start for New Orleans day one in 2006.
This long, long road led us to our first NFC Championship game.
And a couple of years later, we’re staring at a Super Bowl.
Say what you will for hypocrisy, but that win… it was more than sports. It was four decades and two generations collectively breathing together. It was a formerly ravaged city shouting “I’m okay!” as loud as she could. It was a grandfather long gone who loved his Saints, and a grandson who remembers only too hazily watching football with him. A grandfather who never saw the Saints win a playoff game.
This one’s for you Poppus.
This Super Bowl is for all of us.
