Saints Are One Game Away From The Big One!!

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Who needs Mardi Gras when you're one game from the Super Bowl?

Deuce McAllister and rookie sensation Reggie Bush gave this battered city a reason to throw itself a party, carrying the New Orleans Saints where they've never been before -- one game from the Super Bowl.

To constant chants of "DEUCE!" or "REG-GIE! REG-GIE!" the Saints used an assortment of spectacular plays to beat the Philadelphia Eagles 27-24.

Sports Illustrated

This could possibly be one of the greatest feel good/Cinderella stories that we have seen in sports today. For a team to come back from the season like the Saints had last year is a miracle. The Saints of 2005 went 3 - 13 during the regular season. This coming from a team who were virtually vagabonds for the whole season. That is, from playing their 'home games'; and I use that loosely; anywhere from New York City to Baton Rouge to San Antonio. The team is playing for a city that was virtually destroyed by Katrina.

Last year, after seeing what that hurricane did to the city that they love, they just weren't in it to play any games. I think that there heart was with the victims in New Orleans and not with the game of football. Yes, it was okay for them to think like that after what had went on. As with most of us, they were concerned by what was going on in New Orleans, not what was going on in the NFL at that time. What shocks me about this is that the team owners and the general managers were going as far as to say that they wanted to move the team from New Orleans permanently. That would have devastated the region more even after the devastation that Katrina brought to that area. Even the cities of San Antonio and Los Angeles were wanting the Saints to move to their cities.

I can guarantee this, if it wasn't for all the big moves that the Saints front office made during the off-season, this team would not be were it is today. I mean signing one of the biggest names in the National Football League today, that being Drew Brees. In the mean time, while stealing possibly one of the biggest draft picks of all-time, Reggie Bush, from the Houston Texans. While quite possibly making one of the biggest desicions in team history, other than firing Jim Haslett, signing Sean Payton to be head coach. While not being a rookie coach to the NFL, Payton is a rookie at the Head Coach position, and a good one I might add.

For a rookie head coach to come in and do what Sean Payton has done for the team, it is nothing short of being a miracle. He has done what Haslett could not do in his tenure there. That is to bring the team together as a whole and have them play as a team and not individuals.

He wasn't voted Coach of the Year by the Associated Press for nothing.




[edit on 1/14/2007 by gimmefootball400]