The Greatest Football Season of All Time or The Greatest Football Season of All Time

Before we look back at this (admittedly quite memorable) football season I'd like to spend a few minutes looking back at the Greatest Football Season of All Time. 1987 was the Saints' 21st year in the NFL. And although the team and the city already enjoyed a strong bond forged in humor, hope and heartache, 1987 was the year it finally all paid off. This was not only the first Saints team to advance to the playoffs, it was the first to even win more games than it lost in a single season. After 20 years. Think about that. Nobody had seen anything like it before. Nobody knew how to act. So they just did was comes naturally in New Orleans. They made it ridiculous.

If you're a casual observer and are surprised at the way New Orleans takes to football season, if you're surprised at the way it dominates the evening news, the front page, the bakery section at the supermarket, if you notice people reading a bit too much into the color of their brake tags,



or if you get a look at shit like this

or this

or these people

Saints Superfan Secondline from rob davis | photography on Vimeo.

And you're wondering what it is about this year that has caused people lose their damn minds, know that all this is just a continuation of a theme begun over 20 years ago. This time around we really have seen it before, though. Everything you see in the atmosphere surrounding this team, we saw then and we saw it then for the first time. And it was even bigger and crazier than this. Really it was.

Maybe I just feel this way because I was 13 years old then and everything that happens when you're 13 seems really important. But I don't think that's all there is to it. '87 was the genesis of so many memes that live on today. Take, for example, this year's absurd proliferation of Saints-themed music. Heard the "I Believe" song lately? That was 1987. Here's a You Tube video of "Who Dat Christmas" featuring photos of the 2009 Saints but, if you listen to the song, (of course you should) it's littered with names from the 87 roster which it was written to celebrate.



I can remember every game from that season. Not only that, but I can remember odd details about where I was at seemingly minor moments during the year. I remember sitting in the back seat of my dad's car when the Saints recorded their second safety of the game in the season opener against Cleveland. Dad couldn't stop laughing at the Saints for not knowing how to line up on the ensuing free kick and drawing a penalty for it... twice. I remember the way the floor of the living room felt while I was kneeling there as the Saints won their ninth consecutive game. I remember screaming at the TV when Saints nose tackle Tony Elliot kicked a ball the officials were trying to put in play as time expired thus depriving the 49ers of one last play in an epic win at San Francisco.

I remember the "Coulda Shoulda Woulda" speech. I remember the strike. In fact, I remember watching this game played during the strike in Chicago which featured a notable replacement player as quarterback of the Bears.



I know. The symmetry. Weird, huh? Makes you wonder if all this wasn't meant to happen somehow.



Your 2009 New Orleans Saints in Bullet Points

• Coach Soupy finally learns how football works Seymour D Fair passes along a key stat.

  In Sean Payton era, Saints are 0-12 (incl. 2006 NFC Championship Game) when 20 or less rush attempts/game.

  Because Payton has developed a reputation for wide open offense and because of all the attention Drew Brees receives, the Saints are widely thought of as a one-dimensional offense. And this has been an accurate characterization of Payton's previous teams, but not this one. The 2009 Saints were by far the most balanced of the Payton era. The Saints attempted 544 passes vs 468 rushes. They don't feature one workhorse back, but, as a team, they ran for over 2000 yards averaging 4.5 per carry. Four of their five offensive linemen were named as Pro Bowl starters or alternates and that isn't just for pass protection. In the divisional game against Arizona, the Saints destroyed the Cardinals by dominating the line of scrimmage (34 rushing attempts for 171 yards; 5.0 avg) Simply put, this is how you win pro football games. Sean Payton is an imaginative dude who likes to draw up X-Box style plays so it took him a while to figure this out. But give him credit for doing so. At his press conference on Sunday, Payton said he has learned from the team's experience in the 2006 NFC Championship and we believe him. Nobody's perfect, especially not football coaches. Sean Payton, at least, recognizes that fact and this is his greatest strength. It's an unusual quality in his profession.



• #Iamnotworried After the Miami game, the conventional wisdom at the time was that the Saints had pulled off an epic comeback we'd all be talking about for years. Little did we know at the time that the epic comeback would become a near-weekly event for a team that never seemed to be phased by anything.
  
  The Miami game was a turning point for some of us. It was the moment in the season where we just stopped worrying. We realized the Saints still had weaknesses. They couldn't stop the run. They gave up a lot of big plays. But somehow none of this had to mean they wouldn't be ok. The Saints gave up a 68 yard touchdown run to Ricky Williams. In the end it didn't matter. At Philadelphia they gave up a 71 yard touchdown to DeSean Jackson. In the end it didn't matter. At home against Carolina, the Saints gave up a 66 yard touchdown run by DeAngelo Williams. Didn't matter. Atlanta's Roddy White burned them for 68 yards. So what? At Carolina, the Saints gave up a 68 yard touchdown run to Jonathan Stewart. That whole game didn't matter. So, on Saturday night, when we watched Tim Hightower rumble 70 yards on the first play of the game, we just laughed. We're used to this shit. And it just doesn't matter.
  
  
  Whatever. Seen it. What else you got?
  
  Because we were so used to this by the time of the Dallas game, we fully expected the Saints to come back and win that one too. Even when the Saints were down 24-3 we were tagging our Tweeter Tubes with #iamnotworried. And, you know, we were almost right. After the win Saturday we immediately began lobbying for another shot at Dallas. But that doesn't seem to matter now either. The eventual NFC Championship matchup is the right one for reasons discussed elsewhere in this post.



• Defining moments: It's hard to argue against this play as the quintessential embodiment of our #iamnotworried theme. Actually, let's watch it ten or fifteen times right now before we move on.
  
  
  
  And yet we're still calling that a close second to seeing the Superdome crowd "stand up and get crunk" after the Saints scored their first touchdown of their second half comeback against Carolina. Everybody dancing at that point just kind of knew we were coming to get them. Guess you had to be there.
  
  Here's somebody's shaky video of a similar moment during the Falcons game.
  
  
  
  BTW, we're not sure why it took four years of hearing "Halftime" by the Ying Yang Twins in the Superdome for fans to fully embrace the song but now that they have, rest assured it will never ever go away. Before the Cardinals game, the U.S. Marine Corps band performed the song on the field to pump up the crowd. Get ready to hear this in every Mardi Gras parade this year.
  
  Ah... and there's somebody's shaky video of the Marine band.
  
  



• Performances more important than the quarterback's: Yeah I know everybody loves Breesus. But the quarterback play has been a constant for four years now and the team hadn't made the leap forward it did this season without some other stuff going on. The following is a list of six (Yes, six!) players who stepped up and made the more of a difference than the quarterback did for the Saints in 2009.
  
  
  1. Darren Sharper Since the beginning of the season we've been reading about the brilliance of Gregg Williams and how he single-handedly saved the defense by teaching them that turnovers are a good thing or something. I'd like to ask the authors of this oft-repeated story to try writing it again but cross out every occurrence of Sharper's name and write "Josh Bullocks" in its place. No, I know, it doesn't make sense. How could it?
     
     When the Saints signed Sharper, we expected him to improve the secondary. He's a veteran all-pro with a reputation for being around the ball. What we didn't know was just how ridiculous he would be in living up to that reputation. Sharper intercepted 9 passes in 2009. Oh by the way he returned them for 376 yards. That's an NFL record. Oh and he brought three of them back for touchdowns. One of those three, he went 99 yards with. That's a team record. Get the picture?
     
     Against Arizona, Sharper was there to scoop up Jerheme Urban's fumble on the Cardinals' second play of the game. (FUN FACT: The score was 14-7 before Arizona had run even three plays on offense) He also should have had another pick had it not been nullified by a questionable roughing-the-passer penalty. None of the praise you've read about the "opportunistic" Saints defense happens this year without Sharper in the lineup. The Saints defense isn't perfect with him, but without Sharper they're utter crap. And we aren't discussing any of this today if the defense is utter crap.
     
     
     Darren Sharper: The difference between NFC Championship berth and Utter Crap
  
  
  
  2. Frenchy Thomas: Thomas was asked to be the closest thing the Saints would have to a primary back this season. At the beginning of the year, I was skeptical.

     I'm not sold on Pierre Thomas this year. It usually looks like a mistake to me when an athlete who relies primarily on agility decides to suddenly put on an extra ten pounds.

     Wrong. Thomas carried the extra weight and the Saints' resurgent running game all year. Splitting the bulk of the carries with Mike Bell, Thomas led the Saints in rushing with 793 yards and 6 touchdowns. Thomas' elusive but tough running style is fun to watch. Few athletes exhibit the same sort of balance and body control that allows Frenchy to avoid or spin out of as many tackles as he does. Of course, it could also be the $2,000 mouthpiece but we're still on the fence about that one.
     
     
     Thomas also led the Saints in gratuitous tweeting of the phrase, "Who Dat"
  
  
  
  3. Robert Meachem: After spending his first two seasons having trouble getting on the field, the Saints' 2007 first-round draft pick finally broke through in 2009. Meachem (45 receptions 722 yards) shared the team lead in touchdowns with 9 and emerged as the number one big play threat. If the offense was throwing a hay-maker this year, chances are the play involved Meachem. Oh and there was that one thing he did against Washington. (Scroll back up and watch it a few more times. It's good stuff.) Unfortunately, Meach came up a bit lame Saturday. This would worry us were it not for the fact that the Saints still have...
  
  
  
  4. Devery Henderson: Devery just keeps getting better. With Meachem assuming more of the designated homerun role, Henderson focused on becoming a more reliable receiver posting career high numbers in receptions (51) and yardage (804). At one point this year, we even went so far as to refer to the remarkably consistent Devery as "the glue" of the Saints' receiving corps. This isn't to say that he can't still turn in the a big play when called upon. Henderson was asked to do just that when he hauled in this back-breaking 44 yard touchdown off of a flea-flicker play on Saturday.
     
     
     Menckles on the flea-flicker, "Are we allowed to do that?"
  
  
  
  5. Jeremey Shockey: That's right, I said it. Poochie made a huge difference for the Saints in 2009. It's not that his numbers (48 receptions 569 yards 3 touchdowns) are all that impressive. It's more that he represented enough of a legitimate threat to make defenses worry about where he was when he was on the field. When they didn't, he hurt them. And he hurt them often on third down and at crucial points in ball games. When they did pay attention to him, it made the other receivers all the more dangerous. When Shockey missed time toward the end of the season, the offense wasn't the same. Poochie played on a sore toe against Arizona and scored a touchdown. But he also bruised a knee in the process. Keep an eye on him this week. He will be needed against Minnesota.
     
     
     Poochie has also developed into something of a philosopher-poet this season... or so we're told.
  
  
  
  6. Thomas Morstead: In our estimation, Morstead's addition is on par with Sharper's as the most impressive and most important contributor to the Saints' success this season. No need to rehash the arguments we've been making in his favor all season long. No need to point out, once again, that we bought a jersey with his number on it this season... oh what the the hell here ya go.
     
     
     
     Morstead's numbers actually put him somewhere in the middle of the NFL pack statistically but remember a couple of things. 1) The Saints don't punt as often as most teams and yet Morstead seems to make the most out of his limited opportunities. 2) Did you know we're living in the "Golden Age of Punting"? It's true. Check out this recent Sports Illustrated treatment of the subject by John Ed Bradley.

     Statistics suggest that this is the golden age of NFL punting. During the first 12 weeks of the season, the average punt went 44.3 yards, a half yard farther than the record set last year. Punters were on pace to drop 868 balls inside their opponents' 20-yard lines, 103 more than the league mark set in 2007. And the Raiders' Shane Lechler was on course to equal or break the season record of 51.40 yards per punt set 69 years ago by Sammy Baugh. Yet among fans, the punter may be the least appreciated man in the game.

     
     
     At a time when punters are starting to get taken more seriously as weapons, rookie Morstead is part of this new wave. And fans and media are beginning to take notice. Commentators widely declared Morstead the top performer of the Dallas and Carolina games near the end of the season. Many began arguing for his inclusion in Pro-Bowl consideration. During Saturday's playoff game, I snapped this crappy phone picture.
     
     
     
     Look closely. A fan a few rows ahead of us was holding a sign that read "Tom Kicks Balls". The Cult of Morstead is growing. We kind of feel like we built that bandwagon. So, yeah, we're a little proud of ourselves.
     




• Uh Oh the kicker every kicker in the league sucks This is the part where we're supposed to write about how the Saints have had difficulty finding consistency in their place kicking game ever since they dumped John Carney for Olindo Mare back in 2007. We're supposed to tell you about the strange case of Garrett "Scooter" Hartley whose banned substance suspension at the beginning of the year opened the door for Carney to rejoin the team. Neither Hartley nor Carney has earned the fans' confidence this season. And since we've invested some time and energy in finding a way to blame Rob Couhig for the kicking suckery, we really would like to leave it at that.
  
  But stop and look around for a second. 2009 has got to be the worst place kicking season in memory. Evidence abounds for this and you can add your own story but lets look at just the examples I can remember right now.
  
  December 6 Saints vs Redskins: Washington's Shaun Suisham misses a 23 chip shot that would have put the Redskins up by two scores with less than two minutes left to play. Instead the Saints tie the game up and win in overtime. Drew Brees said afterward that the missed kick was validation of his belief in "destiny." The Redskins, on the other hand, merely believed that Suisham kind of sucked. They released him the next day.
  
  December 19 Saints vs Cowboys: Dallas kicker Nick Folk misses from 24 yards away giving the Saints one last chance to save themselves from being upset. The Saints couldn't capitalize on the opportunity but the miss was enough to convince the Cowboys to dump Folk and replace him with.... wait for it.... Shaun Suisham. Suisham would go on to miss three more field goals for the Cowboys, two of those in their playoff loss to Minnesota.
  
  December 27 Saints vs Bucs: Hartley misses from 37 yards away at the end of regulation. Bucs win in overtime.
  
  NFC Wild Card Game Arizona vs Green Bay: Cardinals kicker Neil Rackers hooks a 34 yard attempt at the end of regulation. Luckily for Rackers, the Cards went on to win in OT. Otherwise Nick Folk might have gotten a call.
  
  AFC Wild Card Game: Jets vs Bengals Cincinnati's Shayne Graham misses two makeable field goals at crucial points in a playoff game. The Bengals can't overcome it. Jets move on.
  
  AFC Divisional Round Game: Jets vs Chargers San Diego's Nate Kaeding missed three big kicks which end up accounting for more than the difference in the final score. Jets move on. The Chargers are out.
  
  Oh one more thing. Kaeding was named a starter in the Pro Bowl this year. God, the kicking sucked this season.




• Two things we still don't particularly care for:
  
  1) Reggie Bush Okay so Bush had a pretty big game Saturday. And yes we've read all the stuff about how that performance signaled his full recovery from micro-fracture knee surgery, how he finally learned how to run aggressively because Soupy gave him a wooden bat or something. But, look, I still say it's not worth it. Reggie Bush's typical season consists of one game where he does something spectacular, five or six where he at least contributes something positive, and two or three where he does something maddeningly stupid. He doesn't play at all in the other six to eight games. It's not worth it.
  
  More specifically, Bush's meager contribution to the team is not worth having to explain over and over again how unimportant he actually is to casual football fans from out of town who to this very day simply cannot name another player on the team. No, seriously, that happens to me. Every time the in-laws bring up football, it's always about Reggie. Not even Brees has anything like Bush's name-recognition. He's sort of the "New Orleans is below sea level" of football and he's just not worth the aggravation.
  
  2) Coach Soupy's hokey gimmickry: Did you hear? The Saints are wearing funny T-shirts this year? Did you see that one line the coach had about the cheese? Remember when he organized a jazz funeral for trophies? And then when that wasn't working he had the trophies exhumed? And then last week he gets the team ready to play by adding a fat, semi-retired cripple to the roster and giving everybody else baseball bats.
  
  I guess what I'm saying here is can we make this stop, please? It's embarrassing. Although, it might be fun to try and guess where they're planning to bury the Halas Trophy. Will they leave the hole open until they throw the Lombardi in there with it?
  



• Malcolm Jenkins is still garbage Just thought you should know.
  



• Pants on the ground... in a big pile... on fire It has been suggested in other corners of the internets that Saints fans get together before this weekend's game to burn the dreaded black leotard pants in a great ceremonial bonfire on the Orleans Avenue neutral ground. We wholeheartedly endorse this idea. Should have done it on New Year's Eve but better now than never.



• Finally, one more thing about Saints fans. Last week, we kind of called out what we saw as some uncharacteristically poor behavior bubbling up from Saints fans in the latter part of this season. But I was wrong about one thing.

  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.

  In fact, the Saints fans had benefited from the rest. The playoff game against Arizona was their best of the season. They were loud. According to last Sunday's T-P, they broke 113 decibels. They were funny. Several times during the game, when the Saints' offense got into short yardage situations, the crowd started calling for Deuce; not because they thought he should be in the game, but because they knew he could hear them. Most importantly, they were classy. It seemed like everyone went out of their way to be gracious and friendly to the visiting Cardinals fans. Lots of "thank you for coming"s even a few hugs. It was really great. I guess that's pretty easy to do when you win by 30 points. But it was more that just the margin of victory. It was also partially the clean emotional slate everybody has now that there's just no way anyone can be disappointed with the season's result. And I think it was also the result of some soul searching on the part of the fans. I really think everyone sort of forgot who they were for a while back there and wanted to make up for it. Maybe the bye week really did help the fans as much as it helped the team.

So this is the part of the weekly post where I'm supposed to write a bunch of stuff about how this week, this team is finally the one that is going to fully exploit the Saints' weaknesses. You know, Adrian Peterson is going run through the weak run defense all day, Jared Allen is going to kill Jermon Bushrod, that sort of thing. But I can't do that right now.

If you've read this much of the post you can see I've spent a lot of time looking at Saints stuff on YouTube this week. I've got one more video to show you. And, of course, it happens to be from 1987, The Greatest Football Season of All Time. This is the CBS pre-game footage of that first ever Saints playoff appearance. I was in the Dome for this game and am honestly... I don't know... moved to watch this remarkable historical document of that day. It features all sorts of goodies like Al Hirt, Jimmy the Greek, the old NFL Today theme music, and Johnnie Poe.

It also features the visiting Minnesota Vikings.



The 44-10 hurt the Vikings put on the Saints and their fans on January 3, 1988 was only the first in a line of conspicuous blows delivered over the course of nearly a full generation now. In ensuing seasons Jim Mora's competitive Saints teams suffered a series of demoralizing regular season blowout losses to Minnesota. Late in the 88 season, the Vikings ruined the Saints' year (and any thoughts of revenge) by rolling over them 45-3. Two years later, they rubbed more lye in our lutefisk by blowing the Saints out again 32-3. By this point it was burned into our heads. We hated the Vikings.

In 2000, Jim Haslett's suddenly resurgent Saints fresh off their first ever playoff victory were blown out again by Minnesota in the divisional round 34-16. The Saints would not return to the playoffs for 6 years.

In 2002, the Saints and Vikings played one of the strangest games in Saints history when Daunte Culpepper ran in a two point conversion with no time remaining to beat the Saints by one point. The loss precipitated a horrendous December collapse which marked the beginning of the downward trajectory of Haslett's stint as coach. This game is also infamous for the Saints' awful gold jerseys which we sincerely hope they never ever ever wear again.



Last year the Saints and Vikings played an epic Monday Night game which sort of encapsulated the exciting-but-not-quite-over-the-hump 2008 Saints season.

The point of all this is, somehow we knew that one day if the Saints were ever in this position again, it would have to be Minnesota standing in the way. The point is, we owe them. And right now that's all we're thinking about. And right now #iamnotworried.