Will Saints fans wear bags again?
Payton raised our standards. Having a winning season was the goal.
Sean Payton isn't this team's head coach anymore. We are fans of a team in a competitive sport, and we have no impact on the outcome. How is it that "our" standards are raised? What raised was what we believe is possible. What raised is hope. We can control how our hope waxes and wanes. We cannot control team standards. We can be disappointed or excited, or moving along as expected. A not-small portion of this fanbase has now turned toward actively rooting for losses. If Payton "raised our standards," we sure are fickle and weak to already be... here.
Fans want a "Building towards championship" mentality. Can you blame people? The price for the NFL has risen to astronomical levels that outpace household median income since the paper bag days.
This team built toward a championship for the better part of two decades, including doing some of the most bizarre (complimentary) exploiting of the salary cap in the name of kicking the can down the road. There's a point where you can set a can upright and swing your leg right and get it off the ground a bit, but now it's all smooshed and sliding weird when you can even get a kick on it. We're at that end-stage and these years are going to be lean. I believed winning was possible because of the players present, but it's clear there's a coaching problem on the offensive side of the ball and one is emerging on the defensive side of the ball, perhaps as apathy sets in. It feels a bit adjacent to Ricky Watters' "for who, for what?" remarks after alligator-arming a pass (that, to be fair, was absolutely what we now call a hospital ball).
People pay way too much money for a losing product now.
And yet, people remain strong, supportive fans of other, more dire franchises. We Saints fans are in the midst of year two of a Hall-of-Fame QB retiring and the architect of his HOF career moving on. I greatly dislike the "real fans" canard, but wholesale jumping ship in these moderately-bad times, claiming other teams as the new favorite (I'm seeing this all over social media lately, and remember this vividly at the 0-2 start to the 2017 season too) is just sour to me.
so, if you want change. Stop giving them money. It's what they ultimately have to answer to if they don't want to listen to anyone outside the building.
St. Louis and San Diego residents played versions of this "we ain't going" game and now their favorite teams are in Los Angeles.