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Lord, this is THE game. This is the defining game of the new regime. It all starts or ends in Pittsburg.
The New Orleans Saints have been in the NFL for four decades. Most of that time has been an exercise in futility. You, of course, already know this. The thing I want to focus on is how the lingering affects of years of inept ownership eventually created the current and most significant impediment to the team’s success. I’m talking about the great boogyman: A defeatist attitude. Doubt.
No game could possibly illustrate this more clearly than this week’s Saints vs. Steelers. In this game two extremes are meeting. It’s a collision of the collective consciousness of different cultures and traditions.
Saints fans are taken aback by the fact that the Steelers are the favorites to win. The Steelers are a 2-6 team with major questions at key positions, including a quarterback too dumb to wear a helmet on a freaking motorcycle. Sorry if that sounds a little harsh. I’m in no mood to tiptoe around the obvious.
So why is a 2-6 team favored over a 6-2 team? There are several reasons, but the biggest reason is clearly the 300 lb. gorilla in the room — the great boogyman.
Forget all that stuff you are hearing about the Saints being the new “America’s team.” It’s simply not true. It’s a media creation. It’s a stretch to find a story of interest. It’s PC, and all that bull dooky. The line on this week’s game proof negative. Sure, many people around the country are pulling for us, but the vast majority of America wants to be associated with a winner. That’s how Dallas became “America’s team.” That’s how Notre Dame became, well, Notre Dame.
Just as other regions around the nation scoffed at the re-alignment, condescendingly referring to the NFC South as the “Nascar division,” the Saints will never be “America’s team” until they earn it on the field.
Enough of that. Let’s go to the power of expectations.
Pittsburg is actually the second most popular team in the United States. No other team has the equivalent of Steelers bars in every major city. I was actually quite shocked and intimidated the last time the Steelers played the Saints and I entered a sports pub here in Washington, D.C. to see the game. It was packed with rowdy black and gold. Not my black and gold, their black and gold.
People around the country cannot accept the fact that the mighty Steelers are 2-6. They cannot accept the fact that the lowly Saints are 6-2. Thus the line.
In order for the new regime Saints to have any hope whatsoever in turning the franchise around to the positive, they don’t have to beat the Steelers. They have to beat the boogyman. They have to do it now.
All the experts are calling this game a “trap” for the Saints. That is just psychobabble for not wanting their little world shaken too much. They really don’t want another “America’s team,” but I say let’s give it to them anyway.
The New Orleans Saints have been in the NFL for four decades. Most of that time has been an exercise in futility. You, of course, already know this. The thing I want to focus on is how the lingering affects of years of inept ownership eventually created the current and most significant impediment to the team’s success. I’m talking about the great boogyman: A defeatist attitude. Doubt.
No game could possibly illustrate this more clearly than this week’s Saints vs. Steelers. In this game two extremes are meeting. It’s a collision of the collective consciousness of different cultures and traditions.
Saints fans are taken aback by the fact that the Steelers are the favorites to win. The Steelers are a 2-6 team with major questions at key positions, including a quarterback too dumb to wear a helmet on a freaking motorcycle. Sorry if that sounds a little harsh. I’m in no mood to tiptoe around the obvious.
So why is a 2-6 team favored over a 6-2 team? There are several reasons, but the biggest reason is clearly the 300 lb. gorilla in the room — the great boogyman.
Forget all that stuff you are hearing about the Saints being the new “America’s team.” It’s simply not true. It’s a media creation. It’s a stretch to find a story of interest. It’s PC, and all that bull dooky. The line on this week’s game proof negative. Sure, many people around the country are pulling for us, but the vast majority of America wants to be associated with a winner. That’s how Dallas became “America’s team.” That’s how Notre Dame became, well, Notre Dame.
Just as other regions around the nation scoffed at the re-alignment, condescendingly referring to the NFC South as the “Nascar division,” the Saints will never be “America’s team” until they earn it on the field.
Enough of that. Let’s go to the power of expectations.
Pittsburg is actually the second most popular team in the United States. No other team has the equivalent of Steelers bars in every major city. I was actually quite shocked and intimidated the last time the Steelers played the Saints and I entered a sports pub here in Washington, D.C. to see the game. It was packed with rowdy black and gold. Not my black and gold, their black and gold.
People around the country cannot accept the fact that the mighty Steelers are 2-6. They cannot accept the fact that the lowly Saints are 6-2. Thus the line.
In order for the new regime Saints to have any hope whatsoever in turning the franchise around to the positive, they don’t have to beat the Steelers. They have to beat the boogyman. They have to do it now.
All the experts are calling this game a “trap” for the Saints. That is just psychobabble for not wanting their little world shaken too much. They really don’t want another “America’s team,” but I say let’s give it to them anyway.