Girod Street End Zone

The Goat
GSEZ Founder

It took a good five, six months after the season for it to dawn on me just how mighty a force this Saints franchise has become.

The New Orleans Saints:  so powerful that people all over south Louisiana now freely admit that they have read at least one book, maybe two.

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Yes, Super Bowl Excelleyevee is in the can, the Lombardi Trophy has almost finished its Beerman-and-Marine-aided Gulf Coast victory lap, and it’s really just time to move on.  But before we get officially rolling on your 2010 New Orleans Saints, just one more little link to put you in the mood.  Safe for work, but you might want to keep the volume down:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0LEBo_4RUA&feature=related

Now, put that 31-17 score behind you but stick that feeling in front of you like a carrot out ahead of a mule, and let’s talk about getting another one.

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You may (okay, you will, because these guys have to talk about something, nobody’s paying attention to anybody who says “Just check out last year’s standings, and we’ll catch you on opening day”), hear from national internet columnists and sports pundits about the possibility of a letdown on behalf of the Super Bowl Hungover Saints.  

First, a letdown?  A letdown?  We’re worried about a letdown?

As far as handling any letdown, Jesus, if there is one thing New Orleans Saints fans can handle, it’s a ******* letdown.  That kind of muscle memory doesn’t disappear overnight.  Compared to us Saints fans, Job was Wendy Whiner, and Sisyphus was Jamarcus Russell.

In retrospect, you had a bigger risk from people actually ascending into heaven the night of February 7, 2010 from behind the wheel of the moving car bearing down on you at 40 mph than you do of Saints fans being unable to handle a letdown.

But do not worry.  There will be no letdown.  This will be a good team again, a damn good team, one that is going to win the NFC South and be playing well into January.  Do yourself a favor:  if a sports pundit predicts anything short of a division title, just stop reading or change the channel, as applicable, and just come back to GSEZ.

Letdown?  Letdown?  *walks away muttering like Fred Sanford*

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One of the reasons it’s been so difficult to predict the Super Bowl contenders consistently from year to year is that, with the salary cap and draft, the physical talent level of the top 20-25 or so franchises are reasonably within reach of each other, save those teams that are terminally mismanaged or in the throes of some interregnum. 

What stratifies the teams into (i) regular contenders, (ii) whack-a-mole playoff teams and (iii) wannabes is the mental core of the organization, from the GM and senior personnel managers, through the head coach and the senior assistants, through to the quarterback and the defensive players who are responsible for adjustments and pre-snap alignments.  The smartest teams stay up, those with some brains make biannual one-and-done playoff appearances, and the Texans, Redskins and Jaguars never figure out why they’re always 8-8.

I will spare you the long, drawn-out analysis, not to spoil the surprise for my GSEZ colleague Claude Coupee, who is working on a much broader analysis of dynasties vs. one-hit wonders since the 60s that he will provide in a series of posts during training camp.  Simply, the answer to whatever question you want to ask about the 2010 New Orleans Saints is:  ”Sean Payton.”

I tossed around a lot of comparisons in my head the last few months, and while I suffer from observational bias of seeing Payton up close for four years, I can’t escape the conclusion that he’s the clearest and most original thinker in the role of NFL organizational leader since Bill Walsh (*winces a little*).  

All these guys, Payton and Walsh included, stand on the giants before them (Walsh learned from some obscure coaching guru named Paul Brown, Payton draws primarily from Parcells but also learned offense from the Walsh/Holmgren/Gruden tree), but I just can’t recall a coach in recent years who is so constantly searching for the next, the newer, the better right answer.

This is a relatively young coach, with a great store of energy and a desire to make a mark, who reads playbooks and people equally well but whose greatest strength may yet be his own acceptance of the fact that he doesn’t always have all the answers.  In his mid-forties, but already with four years as an NFL head coach and a Lombardi in his (possibly still) drunken grasp, he is at the perfect intersection of energy and experience, wisdom and hunger. 

This team will be competitive all year, and after that until Sean Payton hits the wall, and that’s not happening until at least as long as he gets to call Drew Brees on the radio on Sundays, if not longer.

No, a 13-game win streak may not be in the cards, nor one of the more dominant single-season performances of the previous decade, as we enjoyed in 2009, but this team will be in it until a tough matchup plays a great enough game to take them out of the playoffs.  If they can.

Buckle up, kids.  We’re going to be the hated ones for a few years.  And it will be glorious.

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We cannot close the first edition of The Goat Speaks for the 2010 season without a kowtowing homage to Payton’s admitted affection for combining a man’s labors and strong drink that is, well, downright Churchillian. 

As one man who essentially quit working out and has been cocktailing like a true Son of New Orleans since late in the evening on February 7, 2010, let me personally salute Payton as the politically incorrect standard-bearer for all of us functional alcoho successful people everywhere who recognize the critical performance function of having the courage to celebrate one’s successes.  Amen.

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As camp opens on Friday, we’ll be providing for you all season the usual commentary and Saints observations, not to mention the meta-analysis for which Claude is so famous.  We haven’t decided yet on this season’s non-football lietmotif (“One Singer/One Song” has been permanently retired), or if we’ll even have one, so suggestions are more than welcome, as are questions.  We keep threatening:  you send us the questions, we’ll do the mailbag.

We are getting fired up for another year, and hope that you are too and will continue to ride along with us.  You can’t ever win the first one again….but there’s another four-month long, brave new world for Saints fans everywhere:  target.  And it’s going to be great.

WHO DAT.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 26th, 2010 at 11:56 pm and is filed under The New Orleans Saints. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.