I don't know how to come back from this (1 Viewer)

[St. Geezy]

It'll take a few days, but we'll all get over this, especially once we're past the Super Bowl.

 

[mdharper]

Injustice hurts.

 

[NeverGiveUP2]

One of the core teachings of the Buddha was, If we get attached to the outcome of something, most of the time we will be unhappy. But I don't know how to or even if I want to detach from Saints games and wins. Just guess I'll suffer on this for a while.

I know I can roll in my hurt or I can start to try and see positives. Hump, one of the positives was reading your awesome and almost always hysterical posts this last season. Brother, I'm very sorry we lost, but your posts made this season much more enjoyable. And you never seem to have a mean bone in your body. Who Dat Hump!!

I can’t detach. I/we all have too much invested emotionally in this team. That’s why this hurts so much. Sometimes around April or who the heck knows this pain will shift to I’m not sure what but I’ll be ready when we take the field again in August. But man this hurts

 

[Saint Jack]

IMO, Bountygate was worse. 2018 is the second best season ever. 2018 will be remembered as a good season with a terrible ending, but it’s nothing compared to Bountygate, avoiding ESPN the entire offseason, and the 2012 season without Payton.

 

[brianw37]

I'm done.

I love you all but I can't watch this crooked league any more.

Devastated.

Same here.. I love the game of football and the saints. But I don't love the NFL anymore, all the rule changes, player blackballing and rigged outcomes have driven me away. I could do almost anything else besides spend my time, money and attention into a "competition" that is as pure as days of our lives scripts. Im gonna miss posting about football but I'll still lurk the EE boards and chatting with all you guys. It's been a pleasure to talk to and meet most of the good peeps on this board.

 

[HouseCall]

IMO, Bountygate was worse. 2018 is the second best season ever. 2018 will be remembered as a good season with a terrible ending, but it’s nothing compared to Bountygate, avoiding ESPN the entire offseason, and the 2012 season without Payton.

Very true. 2012 was a rotten time to be a saints fan. The negativity against our coaches and players. The National narrative that we’d cheated to win a super bowl in 09’ and almost nobody defending us.

This went on for months and the only hope we had was that we could somehow come out that season and prove them all wrong and it ended up being a dismal season.

The majority of the public sentiment now is that we clearly got hosed by the officials and it cost us big time. The casual fans love Drew Brees and they respect him. They wanted to see him try for another Lombardi. The refs stole that. Not just from Saints fans but from casual fans.

Sadly this will all “blow over” nationally. My guess is you won’t hear a peep of it today and likely the glowing McVay/Goff talk will start to ramp up. The NFL are PR surgeons and will marginalize the Saints fans even further to regain the public trust prior to the Super Bowl.

It stinks but it is what it is.

 

[You]

If it happened to us, it can happen to them and deep down, other fans know this.

 

[50_Saint]

I turn 33 in April and will forever hold this grudge until the day I die.

 

[DaveXA]

I'm still having a hard time processing what happened. I've never seen a more deliberately ignored call that directly impacted the outcome of a game than this one. No flag on that play makes zero sense. This is an official who deliberately decided not to make an obvious call. There is no other rational conclusion. Fans of all teams clearly see what we saw.

We have long had issues with officiating here, but in a lot of ways, fans would call it sour grapes, but, almost no one is calling our reaction sour grapes. This was a not a blown call. This was an ignored call. I don't know what the official's motive was, but something clearly caused him to refuse to throw the flag. This wasn't incompetence, but rather a malicious act. I hope evidence is found that he took a bribe or placed bets on this game because the league deserves a black eye for turning a blind eye to the no call.

Still disgusted. I'm still a Saints fan, but as for the NFL...bleep em.

 

[SaintsFanInLA]

Imagine taking your dog to the vet for shots, but then they tell you that they accidentally gave him something to put him down. Then they tell you, they've never made a mistake this big and that they COULD revive him with a never before used medicine but they refuse to. Even though it is within their power, they refuse to make the situation right. Instead they just call you and apologize for killing your dog. Everyone in the vets office and neighborhood knows the vet screwed up, and everyone is apologetic and sympathetic but your dog is still dead, even though it shouldn't be and doesn't have to be. And you still have to pay the vet's bill for killing your dog.

Now imagine some folks just telling you to move on, its just a dog.

That's what this whole situation feels like.

 

[IlliniOne82]

We all chose a leisure activity where the sheer math dictates that in the long term it's going to make you unhappy many more times than the number of times you feel that ecstasy of winning. But yet we all still do it and the end of that game won't change it for most of us. We absolutely got robbed and all of the reactions here are 100% justified but come July when training camp starts most of us will be right back at it. We won't forget but there's a point where the future of a new season becomes much more tangible and then that's what we focus on, knowing we're going to put ourselves through this all again. I wouldn't have it any other way. Sports is one of the few things in life where you can completely invest your emotions into something that you know you have very little control over. For me that is cathartic. You ride the waves as they come and it's a shared experience.

I've only made one or two other posts on this board but my first was about how I came to be a Saints fan. The fandom of the Saints is different than I had experienced with my former team. You all are fans the way I always felt I was a fan but with the prior team I felt like the outlier. Now I feel like one of the masses of just pure fans and it's great. I've now endured the most brutal back to back endings to seasons that maybe any fan base has ever dealt with but I wouldn't have it any other way. I've always been fascinated by what the team meant post-Katrina and the role it played in the city coming back. They came back from the brink of not being in New Orleans then, and they will come back from this. I'm happy to now be counted amongst you.

 

[ArchiesGhost]

I am hanging around here just in case something happens that would justify giving the NFL another chance but with each passing hour it looks less likely.

And this board, as part of the NFL business, is going to have to tow the NFL line that this is just another tough break, part of the game. This board is a business and dependent on the success of the NFL for its success.

For me, without a major concession from the NFL, I cannot continue to support anything to do with the NFL. I won't define exactly what that concession would have to be, but I will certainly know it when I see it.

There are several possibilities as to why this happened.

1. Incompetence. We all know those two officials within a few feet of the play were not incompetent at the level required to not recognize the multiple penalties on that play.

2. Pressure to not throw a flag that affects the outcome. That pressure would have to come from the NFL itself and that is enough to unfairly bias the game result.

3. Pressure to exert influence in achieving a specific outcome. Again, specific direction from the NFL to achieve the outcome, completely invalidating the contest as a fair one.

4. Collaboration by the two officials to achieve a desired result for unknown reasons. Again, invalidating the result.

The NFL, if they do anything, would most likely chose option number one and paint the two officials as boobs and ruin them. However, that option is fraught with peril if it isn't actually the truth and those officials have proof in any form.

It is my opinion that one of the last three options is probable with current events pointing to number three as the most likely. The NFL will remain silent and play damage control. They have to believe the number of fans who choose to walk away from the NFL is far less than the number of fans to be gained by the Los Angeles Rams franchise.

The players and coaches will have to go along to get along and they certainly have millions of reasons to do so.

The owners certainly aren't going to upset the apple cart and Mrs. Benson went as far as she could by calling it unfair but in the end she, too, appealed to the fans to keep on feeding the cash machine.

The only effective protest is not supporting the revenue of the NFL in any way.

For me, the only way to let go of the anger at being a dupe who believed the league was interested in a fair contest is to no longer support it or let it effect my life in any way.

So, I expect the league will do nothing substantial and at some point in the near future the NFL will be completely in my past.

 

[Bill]

Imagine taking your dog to the vet for shots, but then they tell you that they accidentally gave him something to put him down. Then they tell you, they've never made a mistake this big and that they COULD revive him with a never before used medicine but they refuse to. Even though it is within their power, they refuse to make the situation right. Instead they just call you and apologize for killing your dog. Everyone in the vets office and neighborhood knows the vet screwed up, and everyone is apologetic and sympathetic but your dog is still dead, even though it shouldn't be and doesn't have to be. And you still have to pay the vet's bill for killing your dog.

Now imagine some folks just telling you to move on, its just a dog.

That's what this whole situation feels like.

Nice analogy... but so far they haven't even owned up to killing our dog.

 

[Bill]

We all chose a leisure activity where the sheer math dictates that in the long term it's going to make you unhappy many more times than the number of times you feel that ecstasy of winning. But yet we all still do it and the end of that game won't change it for most of us. We absolutely got robbed and all of the reactions here are 100% justified but come July when training camp starts most of us will be right back at it. We won't forget but there's a point where the future of a new season becomes much more tangible and then that's what we focus on, knowing we're going to put ourselves through this all again. I wouldn't have it any other way. Sports is one of the few things in life where you can completely invest your emotions into something that you know you have very little control over. For me that is cathartic. You ride the waves as they come and it's a shared experience.

I've only made one or two other posts on this board but my first was about how I came to be a Saints fan. The fandom of the Saints is different than I had experienced with my former team. You all are fans the way I always felt I was a fan but with the prior team I felt like the outlier. Now I feel like one of the masses of just pure fans and it's great. I've now endured the most brutal back to back endings to seasons that maybe any fan base has ever dealt with but I wouldn't have it any other way. I've always been fascinated by what the team meant post-Katrina and the role it played in the city coming back. They came back from the brink of not being in New Orleans then, and they will come back from this. I'm happy to now be counted amongst you.

You just need to post more.

 

[Madmarsha]

The NFL may be too big to fail, but it's not too big to be hurt. That's why the 30 billionaires put up with Goodell's Gestapo. He's grown their bottom lines. It's capitalism. However, it's also people. Only when the growth of the fans (people) recedes or gets stagnant will Goodell get nervous and the owners start feeling it. The Super Bowl is not about fans, it's about corporations. But, again, only because consumers (people) are feeding their bottom lines.

Will me not buying NFL-sanctioned products/merchandise hurt them? No, not at first. But here's the thing, it doesn't hurt me either. Okay, it hurts the local business owner. So they better find things to sell that don't require an NFL licensing fee because I will go out of my way to make sure what I'm buying. Will me not buying a ticket to the game hurt them? No. But, again, doesn't hurt me either not to purchase something that will ultimately enrich the NFL. You can't keep antagonizing people who you ultimately will end up needing.