The Saints Saved New Orleans

The New Orleans Saints will turn 40 next year. They started out great - their very first play was a 94 yard opening kickoff return for a touchdown by John Gilliam. For the most part, they haven’t been that good since. They lost that game and the next six games of their first season. They didn’t play a post-season game till their 20th season, and they’ve only entered post-season five times in their whole existence (most recently in 2000).

But this year the Saints are on fire! Two weeks ago, they beat the Cowboys, a team that historically isn’t used to losing, especially to the Saints. Their timing couldn’t be better because 15 months after Hurricane Katrina roared through the region, New Orleans has barely begun to recover. Its citizens need something to raise their spirits, and a winning season seems to be doing the trick.

Yesterday they lost to my current local favorite Washington Redskins, but they are 9 and 5 and in the playoffs.

New Orleans fans have always supported their Saints in spite of the team’s perennially dismal performance, but there were strong indications last season that the team owner was ready to move the Saints to San Antonio, their temporary post-Katrina home. There were doubts the storm-damaged Superdome could be repaired by this season. Maybe it could never be fixed. The New Orleans area economy was in a shambles. Would the fans be able to afford to continue their support? Would anyone want to go to the games in the facility that came to symbolize disorganization, destruction and death resulting from the worst hurricane to ever hit the United States?

The first Saints home game this season stopped the skeptics, with a sold out crowd of 70,000 and a victory. And now near the end of maybe their best season ever, it appears that the beloved black and gold are saving New Orleans, or at least the spirit of New Orleans.

Often people ask why a city spends tax dollars on a sports team, especially when the teams make so much money and can easily afford to pay their own way. This is one of the answers: a pro sports team can be the centerpiece to a city’s pride and economy. A pro sports team can make a region feel good about itself, which can snowball into revitalization, increased business, employment, etc. A team can save a city.

This is one of those cases.

The Saints could just save New Orleans. At the very least, the team helps give residents and folks across the country a sense that the city that care forgot won’t be the city that the country forgot.