Who Dat Nationalism or Now We Can Haz Mardi Gras?

It's been a disappointing month for the New Orleans Saints. The strain and stress of the long NFL season has taken its toll on the team's health and shaken its confidence. Just playing 16 professional football games is bound to do that, let alone the added pressure of maintaining a 13 game winning streak. Even during the tail end of that winning streak, we found ourselves writing each week that the Saints were, "beat the fuck up and wore the fuck out." Undoubtedly the team will benefit from the 2 weeks of rest they've allowed their key players. (The Saints wisely held many of their starters out of the meaningless season finale at Carolina.) We expect them to enter the playoffs at their best. The fans, on the other hand, are a different story.

A few weeks ago, Mr. Clio wrote a pair of letters to the Dallas and New Orleans papers. Here is what he sent to the T-P.

As a longtime Saints fan and season ticket holder, I was proud of my team's effort against the Cowboys Saturday night, but I was ashamed of some of my fellow Saints fans' treatment of Cowboys fans.

Ever since I was treated poorly as a Saints fan on a trip to a game at Indianapolis a few years ago, I have made it a point to welcome opposing teams' fans to the Superdome. They are always appreciative, and I've had some nice conversations with people from all over the country.

This past Saturday night, every Cowboys fan with whom I spoke told me that that he or she had been treated badly by some of my fellow Saints fans. In addition, a friend who was on the field at the end of the game witnessed a Saints fan verbally abusing (with profanity) the Sports Illustrated reporter Peter King, who is a Saints season ticket holder.

To my fellow fans: we can do better. That is not who we are. New Orleans is a city of hospitality, warmth, and acceptance of difference--even if that difference means that the other person is wearing another color jersey.

Our warmth comes from knowing that we live in a city like no other, a city that we love. We don't have time for abusing other cities. We're too busy loving our city and our team.

Now I'm certainly not above "abusing other cities" in general terms but, as a Saints season ticket holder and frequenter of the touristier areas of the Quarter on weekends, I always look forward to meeting and talking with visiting football fans. It has long been my impression that Saints fans are typically welcoming and good-humored with visiting fans. But that hasn't always been the case this year. And Clio isn't the only one who has noticed. Two fans share anecdotes in the following excerpt from Leo McGovern's "Homefield Advantage" column in this month's ANTIGRAVITY Magazine.

“WHO DAT NATION” NEEDS TO TAKE A LONG LOOK IN THE MIRROR

There are many side effects that present themselves when a team begins to win, particularly when it’s a team that hasn’t won a lot before. It’s no big surprise, then, that the Saints bandwagon is a lot heavier than it was back in August. Hell, in a lot of ways it’s heavier than it was back in 2006, when the Saints were 10-6 and made a trip to the NFC Championship game. Unfortunately, a side effect of all this winning is that some Saints fans have become horrible fucking assholes. Or that wonderful selection of fans simply gained a few new members with all the bandwagon jumping, members who have shown their true colors after a couple of Saints losses. Either way, it’s a problem.

We’ve been disappointed by the Saints so many times and have dealt with so many tough, hard-to-believe-it-could-happen losses that it was utterly disappointing to feel the misplaced anger and stupidity emanating from so many seats during the Saturday night game against the Cowboys.

We actually left the Superdome about halfway through the 3rd quarter, not due to frustration with the team (though there was some of that, for sure) but because it had virtually become uncomfortable to stay. One season ticket holder two rows in front of us yelled at a Cowboys fan so hard that he was visibly shaking afterwards. Another got into no fewer than three altercations with that same Cowboys fan before a cop came up and nearly kicked the Cowboys fan out (which would’ve been a damn shame, considering the only reason he was being obnoxious was because he was being taunted and yelled at by Saints fans). The general feeling was that everyone expected us to win. There’s nothing wrong with that, but when it didn’t look like that was going to happen, too many fans got bent out of shape because they somehow felt entitled to a win. On our way out from the game, we saw a full-fledged fistfight between two Saints fans in one of the smoking sections outside the dome. I’d have hated to see the reaction after we actually lost.

The Dallas game wasn’t the first instance of Saints fans acting out. Jeffrey (from the awesome Library Chronicles—visit him at librarychronicles.blogspot.com—and host of the sports panel at the 2009 Rising Tide) relayed this story, from the Patriots game:

“After the New England game, we were walking down the ramp talking to a couple of Patriots fans who had come to New Orleans to see this game but also to get engaged and celebrate. They were nice people… But the conversation started to get uncomfortable when a very loud and obnoxious Saints fan noticed their jerseys and just started bellowing into the guy’s ear the whole rest of the way down. ‘Patriots are losers! Go back to Boston! You suck!’ Now, most of the Saints fans around us were kind of embarrassed at this and tried to politely intervene but the guy was kind of relentless. We would say, ‘Thank you for visiting our city. Sorry this guy is an idiot.’ And he would just scream louder, ‘I’m an idiot! I’m an 11-0 idiot!’”

I’ve been known to throw a fit at a game before (I’ve broken a radio or two, and some headphones), but I’ve never felt entitled to win—I mean, what are we becoming, Yankees fans without the championships? There are still too many real fans in the city to get disillusioned about our fan base, but hopefully this loss dumps some of those bandwagon jumpers who showed up in droves just to see something “undefeated.” To put it succinctly—we can be better, New Orleans. And we should be better sports.

And prior to this season, I've always believed that we were better sports. Saints fans know better than anyone that, while winning is nice, it's hardly the main determinant of whether or not we're getting our money's worth in quality entertainment. Prior to this season, the Sean Payton era has brought us some of the most exciting football Saints fans have seen. And yet the team's regular season record was right at .500. Historically, Saints fans have led the NFL in attendance per victory, in creative costuming, alcohol tolerance, good humor... all the crucial statistics. But this year they've been knocked off their game somehow. Why is that?

Somewhere during the streak, we started a running item called "Going undefeated is actually kinda gay" It became more and more apparent to us that the unbeaten streak was not only wearing on the team, but it was also damaging the fans' attitude. It changed the week's mantra from, "Wouldn't be great if we beat these guys!" to "Dammit we better not fuck this up!" Saints fans are used to getting over disappointment, but week after week of overcoming that takes a little extra effort. It takes a certain brand of wit, and genuine dark humor to help over-hyped Saints fans de-Beavis and recapture their perspective. It takes...


Where have you gone, Diliberto? Who Dat Nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

But, alas, St. Buddy has moved on to that big racetrack in the sky and we're left with... well this idiot (click to see Bobby Hebert acting like an idiot) With the clownish, angry, semi-literate, belching Hebert taking over for the streetwise Diliberto, "Who Dat Nation" (as Hebert so cloyingly refers to the fan base) has lost its center. Hebert's radio show is a train wreck. Hebert constantly talks over his guests and co-hosts with a stream-of-consciousness bellow of boring banal cliches which ultimately leave listeners more frustrated than they were when they tuned in. Generally, people tune in to post-game call-in shows to relieve frustration. Hebert only exacerbates the condition. The stress of the unbeaten streak is tough but I believe it is Hebert's coarsening of the discourse that has inflicted the most damage to the Who Dat psyche. After the season, we'll be starting our Get-This-Coonass-Redneck-Idiot off of my radio campaign. But for now, let's all try to rise above it.

Today, #Iamnotworried (Twitter TM). When we looked at the Saints at the beginning of this season, we figured them for about 9 wins. They've managed to exceed that projection by four wins, which we think is pretty amazing. We don't know what's going to happen today so we have no idea what sort of mood we'll all be in later. I'm putting together a short look back at this memorable season which might be fun to look at later no matter which way today's game goes. But as of right now the season is incomplete so we're saving it for when we know.

Anyway, the best thing about this football season is that it has seamlessly segued right into Carnival. And so before we head out to the Dome, we ask you to please enjoy this 30 seconds of crappy video from last night's Pussyfooters Ball. What you're not exactly seeing in the shot is the 610 Stompers standing up and getting crunk.



Happy Who Dat Gras (Literally Fat Who Dat, the best kind)