“Obviously, a big win for us,’’ said Saints coach Sean Payton. “That’s a real good team we played. I think our players know that. We have a lot of respect for what they have accomplished.’’
That’s a very nice and diplomatic way of responding to a thorough whuppin’.
It would be difficult to overstate what’s going on down here with the New Orleans fans and their current adoration of this football team. You easily could think you had landed in Tuscaloosa, Gainesville, or Austin, and not an NFL town. A big sporting event - and this was considered the biggest regular-season game in Saints history - easily can get swallowed up in a major city. When it’s all said and done, not everyone is a sports fan.
But it was impossible to escape the Saints, and this game, the last few days. Every other person was wearing Saints garb, and that includes just about every croupier at Harrah’s Casino, be it male, female, Caucasian, African-American, old, or young.
This was, by all accounts, the toughest ticket in Saints history. People saw this game as the one that would validate all the others. It was a tremendous sign of respect for a 7-3 opponent with a shaky defense, but such is the lingering Patriots mystique throughout the National Football League.
The Saints, meanwhile, have had a tortured history, never really coming close to a Super Bowl. Now, pretty much without warning, they have come up with a dynamic team that has a chance to break records, which, in the end, isn’t really important, and win a championship, which is. It’s just their luck there is another monster team loose in the conference, and it is getting harder and harder for neutrals not to be rooting for an epic confrontation in the Jan. 24 NFC Championship game between the Saints and the Minnesota Vikings. The two conceivably could enter that affair with a combined regular- and postseason record of 33-1. That one might earn a ratings point or two.
