MIAMI -- There's a sense they've already won, that the notion of the New Orleans Saints reaching the Super Bowl is preposterously fulfilling enough to render the result anti-climactic. Oh, how wrong could that be? You don't spend quality time in the city, as I have before and after the hurricane, without understanding the importance of New Orleans not losing again. Yes, it's a football game, not a natural disaster leading to death and destruction. Yet here's the chance to leave behind heartache and finally rejoice as one in ways no outsider can grasp.
Losing the Super Bowl would be a continuation of the sadness and dejection. But win the Super Bowl? "Mass pandemonium for weeks upon weeks,'' said Saints part-owner and executive vice president Rita Benson LeBlanc, the 33-year-granddaughter of owner Tom Benson. "I don't know if it will cut off at Lent with Fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday. Generally, everything stops after Mardi Gras, but I don't know now. I guarantee you that from Super Bowl to Mardi Gras, it is going to be the biggest time in New Orleans that anyone has ever seen."
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