Hocus Pocus Saints Could Disappear

DAVIE, Fla. -- First of all, magic teams don't win Super Bowls. They do prosper in other sports. You've had the Miracle Mets in baseball. You've had more than a few of them in college basketball, where you've had a Villanova over a Georgetown and a North Carolina State shocking a Phi Slama Jama.

The Super Bowl? Turns out the 1969 Jets of Hall of Famers Joe Namath, Don Maynard and Weeb Ewbank were underrated instead of underdogs.

We needn't go further than that.

Anyway, none of this bodes well for the New Orleans Saints on Sunday against the Indianapolis Colts. Dwight Freeney's injury notwithstanding, the Colts are just about a Peyton Manning better.

Not only that, if the Saints really are destined to win the Super Bowl as a magic team, why couldn't they stop that nasty rain on Monday after their Delta charter landed in south Florida? Why did they even need a plane? They should have flown all the way from Louisiana by flapping their arms through pixie dust.

Here's another thing: You know how meticulous NFL coaches are, especially with a world championship on the line. Well, the Saints' routine for Super Bowl Week already is botched. They were supposed to practice every day in Coral Gables at the University of Miami. Instead, given the rain and the lack of an indoor facilities for the Hurricanes, the Saints were forced to pack up their shoulder pads, kicking tees and everything else. They had to bus their way up the road for a 45-minute ride or so to Davie, Fla., home of the Miami Dolphins.

Still, the Saints believe.
"I guess you can say something like that," said Saints offensive lineman Jahri Evans, nodding and smiling, after his team's first Super Bowl practice reportedly went smoothly despite the logistical mess. "We put a lot of hard work in, going back to last summer, and this was our No. 1 goal -- making the Super Bowl." Then Evans glanced around at the thick media contingent that will grow into a mighty nation as the week goes on, and added, "And here we are."

Yes, they are, with the knowledge that they've overcome the franchise's reputation as an NFL punch line for most of its 43 years in existence. They very much were the Aints, which is why they've never been to a Super Bowl. They've rarely been close to the playoffs. They've mostly been in purgatory.

So the last few months were the stuff of Mother Goose, Cinderella and the Good Witch From The East after the Saints started 14-0. They also had the league's most prolific offense courtesy of Drew Brees' frequently accurate right arm throwing to a slew of gifted receivers. There even were (surprise, surprise) a few Reggie Bush moments. Plus, with 34-year-old Darren Sharper leading the way by stiff-arming Father Time, the defense was good enough when it counted.

Then there is that Hurricane Katrina thing.

Always that.

It's been five years since thousands of New Orleans citizens were blown away to distant locations, and they were the fortunate ones. Others died. Still, many more were forced to begin the process of restoring their old way of life with much agony along the way, but they all had the Saints as their rallying point. It always has been this way regarding New Orleans and its Saints, even when they were their raggedy selves.

Now you have THESE Saints, and they are the Super Saints. And, if not to anybody else, they are the magic Saints for an entire region.

"Actually, I don't think that can be stated enough, the fact of what we mean to the city, the community and the whole state of Louisiana," Sharper said. "Even going beyond that, you've got all of those people who have been displaced out of New Orleans and haven't had the means to come back. I think this season has meant a lot to them. And it's meant a lot to all of us to be able to touch their lives and bring a bit of happiness to them.

"Besides the fact of what they went through with Katrina, beyond that, you have what they've been through with this organization and its struggles over the years. So us, playing for the community, that can't be understated."


Sounds nice. It's just that the Saints need more than emotionalism to push them to a world championship this week. Not only do they need Manning to switch teams before the opening kickoff, they need the usual things: to block and to tackle better than the Colts, and to stay away from the stuff that normally destroys Super Bowl teams that just don't get it when they get here. We're talking about those who reach the Super Bowl in general and those who play in the Miami-area in particular.

This is the place where Stanley Wilson of the Cincinnati Bengals went nuts the night before a Super Bowl game in 1989. After he rushed from a team meeting, supposedly to retrieve his playbook, a Bengals assistant coach found the running back in the bathroom of his hotel room high from snorting cocaine.

The Bengals lost the next day.

Remember that Eugene Robinson silliness with the Atlanta Falcons? That happened in Miami, too. He was their team leader. He was given an NFL award for his outstanding moral character on the Saturday afternoon before that Super Bowl in 1999, and he was arrested that night for soliciting a Miami police woman for oral sex.

The Falcons lost the next day.

"We know there is a lot going on with the Super Bowl, but at the same time, we know we've got to go to work," Evans said. "We know this is the biggest game of the year, and we're not here for the festivities and hoopla -- Miami and all of that. We're here to play the game, and we're here to win it."

That also sounds nice, but for rookie Super Bowl teams such as the Saints, such a philosophy -- which actually is the right one -- can be a burden. Dick Vermeil had his Philadelphia Eagles so tight before their 1981 Super Bowl in New Orleans against the loosey goosey Oakland Raiders (which included defensive lineman John Matuszak trying to single-handedly destroy the French Quarter) that they were blown out. In contrast, Bill Walsh dressed as a bellhop during the first trip to the Super Bowl for his San Francisco 49ers in Detroit after the 1982 season, and the 49ers won.

Walsh's gimmick worked so well back then that Saints coach Sean Payton decided to do the same thing on Monday, but Payton added a twist. Not only did he dress as a bellhop to meet the team buses when they arrived at their Miami hotel, but he had the Saints' seven Pro Bowl players do the same. Those Pro Bowlers already were in town since the game was held on Sunday.

"That was pretty cool," said Evans, among those Pro Bowlers, who added his outfit had to be "stretched out a little bit" to fit around his 318 pounds.

And you know what? This bellhop thing is kooky enough to make these Saints do what those 49ers did back then, but those 49ers had Joe Montana.

He was their Peyton Manning.