For the New Orleans Saints, the Louisiana representative of the Southern Division with the National Football Conference (NFC), life from the National Football League (NFL) has been 1 lengthy exercise in patience. Since their establishment as an expansion franchise in 1966, the Saints have been on an upward trajectory – but a single using a quite slight uphill grade. It took them a lot more than ten years to manage a breakeven season, and one more decade beyond that to finally have their first year or so with far more wins than defeats. They didn’t manage a playoff victory until the 2000 campaign. Saints fans have had to endure far much more downs than ups over the last four decades as their team struggled to find its place in an NFL dominated by concepts of parity, but throughout it all, patience has been the byword.
Wearing bags
There is no denying that the Saints have come a long way from the sad days of 1980 when the team managed to go down to defeat in each of their very first fourteen games with the couple of years. Things were so bad that the team’s fans took to covering their heads with paper bags during home games, in an attempt to show the disgust and shame that they felt over their team’s dismal performance. Oddly adequate, the trend caught on with other teams too, and is now a common sight from the stadiums of underperforming teams across the nation.
Katrina’s impact along with the team’s comeback
As if the team didn’t suffer via sufficient disappointment, Hurricane Katrina’s arrival in New Orleans in 2005 severely disrupted both the city as well as the franchise. With the Superdome unfit for game play, the Saints spent the period on the road- a difficult prospect for even the ideal teams in the NFL. When the 2005 couple of years ended with a 3-13 record, the entire franchise could only look forward on the following period and also the hopes that they would once again be able to have real home games. As it turned out, the 2006 year or so was indeed a marked departure from the Saints’ past history of disappointing performances. Following winning their Division and making it towards NFC title game, the Saints fell to the Bears. It was, even so, a harbinger of much better items to come.
The road for the Super Bowl
Of course, the Saints wouldn’t be the Saints if they didn’t take two steps back for every step forward. Right after their stellar 2006 year or so, they followed up with two mediocre seasons in a row before launching into the 2009 campaign. That season saw the team run out to a thirteen straight wins, finishing the season using a 13-3 record. Their victory inside NFC title game was their 1st ever, and propelled them into Super Bowl XLIV against the seemingly unstoppable Indianapolis Colts. The Saints, nevertheless, were not about to be kept from their first-ever NFL title, and went on to win the game in convincing fashion. For long-suffering Saints fans and players, it was a fitting reward for decades of patience.
check out our New Orleans Saints Bedding or our Houston Texans Blanket or our Indianapolis Colts Blanket
