The more I think about it the more troubled I am about my attitude in regard to the current state of our beloved football franchise. Yes, the performance of our team is anything but impressive these days, and it's a far cry from what we were treated to during the Payton/Brees era. But we had to see this coming. I mean, nothing good lasts forever. Perhaps we failed to prepare ourselves properly for this inevitable downturn.
Sure, we can choose to be miserable about it... even angry if we're the type who is prone to such emotion. But we can also choose to make the best of what we have down the home stretch of the 2023 season. This is not to take away from the misery of those who have a lot of money invested in this team and feel that they must make their feelings know to the front office that they are very displeased with the lack of production shown by the team they are supporting. More power to those who are earnest in their attempts to get this point across to Mickey & Gayle.
But frankly I think they already know. Everybody knows. Including every coach & player that is receiving the brunt of the criticism. But there is an undeniable fact about this Saints team that we must acknowledge. They aren't done yet. Not only are the Saints still in the hunt for the NFC South crown and a #4 Seed home game in the playoffs, but at the moment they also control their own destiny for those two prizes.
While it's easy to give discouraging reasons 'why' the Saints are still in the running, isn't it still better than what Decembers were like back in the 70s & early 80s? Like many of you folks I remember when the postseason dream was over long before we entered the last month of regular season football. How we used to yearn for the opportunity just to find ourselves in the short list of playoff participants. Even during the Mora years when our postseason visits came up empty, we were still happy & proud that we managed to get there.
I get it. It's hard to go back and accept mediocrity once again. But it can still be fun and exciting to cheer on your team even though hard reality says we won't get far. But it's still better than being eliminated by Thanksgiving. In fact this very situation is what the premise of KWTPF sprang from. No, I'm not going to fool myself into thinking 'this could be the year'. What's going to happen, is going to happen. But I'm going to enjoy whatever positive things may come about in the next 4 weeks. Chances are I'll be a little less disappointed when the inevitable happens. But either way, I just need to take myself back to those days when hope was always fleeting so that I can find some joy in knowing that this December we still have something special to play for.
Geaux Saints! :9: