If you are a regular reader of this column, you’ve probably figured out by now where my mind has been as of late.  So until the Saints’ season comes to an end, hopefully in sunny Miami and not frigid Chicago, don’t expect to read much about politics, world events or anything else not related to the New Orleans football franchise in the little corner of the vast internet universe I occupy.

Sure, just because the still-recovering city of New Orleans is enraptured in football, that doesn’t mean the rest of the world stops moving. I guess it’s easy for Saints fans to think otherwise, since the local scenery around here hasn’t changed much since the last of the putrid hurricane waters that engulfed the New Orleans area retreated back to the sea.

But the other reason has to do with the Saints’ incredible and unprecedented success.

To those who don’t follow football and others that may though not as obsessively, allow me to explain the collective ecstasy that has taken hold of a community that is only 40% returned and 60% gutted or still “moldering”.

Imagine for a moment that you have spent the last four decades betting on a racehorse that has lost every time it has run.  Yet despite its perennial loser status, year after year you and 60,000 other people (sometimes wearing bags on their heads though they still paid the admission) show up at the track and lay your money down without fail.

Then suppose that devotion is further tested when a storm smashes the horse’s stable and the owner decides to send the battered beast off to the glue factory, but thanks to the intervention of others, who also lost their homes, the stable gets fixed and the horse is given another chance at life.

And then he breaks loose like he never has before.

I’m only 32 years old and have been a die-hard Saints fan since being cognizant of what the NFL was (the Bum Phillips era in New Orleans).  I’ve been attending Saints games for the past twenty years and was present for the team’s first playoff win and two of their three post-season losses and many regular season disappointments in the Superdome.  There are tens of thousands of longer in tooth and thinner in stomach lining  fans who have financially and emotionally invested far more in this team than I have…many dating back to the Tulane Stadium days.

As for many years New Orleans has been a one-sport city, the people here have had no other major sporting venue to serve as an alternative to a bad football season.  And unfortunately, there’s been a hell of a lot more bad times than good.  Yet we stayed through it all. 

Even Detroit and Phoenix, cities whose football teams have not fared much better than the Saints, have celebrated title victories with their baseball, basketball or hockey teams.  New Orleans has had to settle for “wait till next year”, a statement no more reassuring than a “free beer tomorrow” sign at a bar.

The team first took the field in 1967 and did not achieve a playoff victory until late 2000. 

In contrast, Carolina and Jacksonville’s teams accomplished that and made their respective conference’s championship game in their second year of play.  The Saints didn’t get that last part done until Saturday night.

All of the New Year’s Eves, Fourth of Julys and Battle of New Orleans reenactments I’ve attended never tested my ears’ sensitivity like the Saints’ first home division playoff game when they squared off against the Eagles.

Attribute it to superstition, cynicism or bearing witness to so much bad history but I didn’t think the Saints were going to win.  Philadelphia had beaten the Saints in a previous playoff game and I felt they were the toughest team in the NFC.  The Eagles were the Lazarus team of the 2006 season pitted against the Lazarus franchise of the NFL.

As the Saints finally seemed to be able to stop the Eagles on third-down late in the game while holding a lead, I cautioned a not-so-slightly inebriated fellow season ticket holder to stop taunting the snide Eagles fans, whose reputation for obnoxiousness is best represented by the installation of a jail cell in their current stadium (and a court room in their old).  Having watched Joe Montana and others pull off too many last minute miracles at the Saints’ expense, I wasn’t about to claim victory prematurely.

Though my words did not dissuade his flapping of arms and profane bird-themed taunts, he along with the rest of the stadium was silenced by Reggie Bush’s drop of a pitch that resulted in a turnover.

But in a change of franchise habit, the Saints’ defense made a stand that negated the loss of possession and the Eagles foolishly punted on fourth down when they should have realized that their odds were better at picking up a first than containing Deuce McAllister to a three and out.

When number twenty-six garnered the final first down as the clock continued to tick towards zero, I was too worn out to be jubilant from what might very well go down as the most intense professional football game ever played in the Superdome. 

Instead I felt a relief in that they did not allow what would have been a fatal fourth quarter fumble for a different Saints playoff team to end their Superbowl run. 

In a desolate land where the locals have been plagued by LRA inaction and corporate insurance indifference, we have at least been blessed with the timely dividends from our 39 year investment as Saints fans.

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Mike Bayham is a political consultant in south Louisiana and can be contacted at MikeBayham@yahoo.com.