A wise man, named Drew Brees, has famously spoken about a concept called “defining moments.” Being one of the greatest NFL quarterbacks to ever live, it’s safe to say that Brees knows a thing or two about the highs and lows of an NFL season. An observation that he’s made over his career is that every season can be whittled down to just a handful of moments that tell the whole story by themselves. These moments “define” each season. As a diehard New Orleans Saints fan myself, this idea has always
resonated with me. At the end of every Saints football season, I love to think back to the moments that I believe defined that particular year. Today, as I introduce myself as the newest contributor to Canal Street Chronicles, I got the idea to expand on this concept. What are my personal “defining moments” throughout the course of my journey as a lifelong Saints fan? Why did I fall in love with this team? How did they become such a core component of my existence? What exact moments directly lead to the forming of this unshakeable loyalty that I hold for the New Orleans Saints.
In May of 2003, I was born in East Jefferson General Hospital. I grew up in Metairie, Louisiana. I’m the son of two LSU Tigers and my family has been in Louisiana since we got off the ships from the old country. I was born with Black and Gold running through my veins. My earliest memories include our Kindergarten “black and gold day” to celebrate the Saints winning their first ever Super Bowl. I went to a Catholic school, so being able to wear anything besides our uniforms was a big deal for my six-year-old self. As much as I would love to say that the 2009 championship run was a defining moment for me, that would be a lie. I was simply too young to fully appreciate that season. My first defining moment is actually far more sinister. A moment that most Who Dats wish they could forget…
The year is 2011 and I am eight years old. My Christmas list features two items: A PlayStation 3 and a copy of Madden 12. This was a big year for me. I have finally achieved consciousness! The first seven years of my life were spent on a glorified auto pilot. Now, I’m at the steering wheel. I can form independent thoughts, make lasting memories, and (most importantly) fully understand the game of football. I finally know what those yellow and blue lines on the screen mean. I can even recall what happened in previous games and make predictions about future games. I have favorite players, favorite uniforms, and obviously… favorite teams. Speaking of those favorite teams, this was also a big year for them as well. The LSU Tigers went 13-0, won the SEC championship against Georgia, and were ranked #1 in the country for virtually the entire season. The New Orleans Saints weren’t too shabby either. This is Drew Brees, Jimmy Graham, Darren Sproles, etc. This squad dominated pretty much everybody all year and finished the regular season with an elite 13-3 record. Somehow, this still wasn’t good enough to secure a first round bye. However, we took care of business at home against the Detroit Lions in the Wild Card Round. This set up a highly anticipated Divisional Round Matchup against the San Francisco 49ers in Candlestick Park. I think you know where this is going by now…
The date is January 14th, 2012. Just five days earlier, I watched my LSU Tigers get absolutely humiliated, 21-0, against Alabama in the National Championship game played in the Superdome. That game ripped my heart out of my chest. It was very coincidental how my first year of being a football fan lined up with the success of my teams. Both of my teams just so happened to go on legendary runs at the very moment I became old enough to start paying attention. To be candid, I didn’t know how good I had it. This was my first season ever watching football. It was all I knew! Of course, my teams win every game! Why wouldn’t they, right? I was operating under this false assumption that, by birth right, my teams were simply destined for greatness. LSU getting blown out in that championship game, by a team who we had beat in the regular season, was the first rude awakening. It was the first time that my hyper unrealistic football worldview was ever challenged. I didn’t know how to respond. I was devastated. Luckily, I still had the Saints to look forward to. Like I said, we got a playoff game against the 49ers today. I’m fired up. LSU may have let me down, but the Saints have a secret weapon that the Tigers lacked. That secret weapon… is Drew Christopher Brees. He ain’t gonna let me down.
Well, Drew definitely didn’t let me down. He threw for 462 yards, four touchdowns, and 40 completions. For the sake of us all, I’m not going to recap exactly how this game transpired. If you’re reading this article, it’s safe to assume that you already know. Vernon Davis’s “The Catch III” was the first time that I ever shed tears over a sporting event. Getting blown out was one thing, but losing a thrilling, rollercoaster-style game with like 13 lead changes in the final 2 minutes was truly a different animal. I was not mentally nor spiritually prepared to go on that journey. No eight-year-old deserves to feel that way. However, this was certainly a defining moment for my Saints fandom. Not only did this shatter my preexisting assumption that things were always going to go our way, but it also totally radicalized my fandom. Losing such a critical game in such a heartbreaking fashion made me want to win it all the next season more than anything else ever could. When you share a terrible experience with another human being, it creates a uniquely strong bond with that person. The same logic can be applied to sports fandom. Losing that playoff game against the 49ers was the gut-wrenching experience that I needed to fully embrace the fact that I will support this team until the day that I die, no matter what.
The next defining moment took place in 2017, and no it’s not what you’re thinking. It’s time to lighten the mood! Enough with these awful memories! Let’s talk about something happy. Over the following years preceding that 49ers game, the Saints were in 7-9 purgatory. I don’t think I need to remind you of that either. During this time, I was beginning to form an inverse version of my initial football worldview. I went from being overly optimistic in the very beginning, to holding a far more pessimistic outlook by the 2017 offseason. Keep in mind, we had fully been wasting Drew Brees’ prime over this stretch of time. Every season felt hopeless with historically bad defenses, divisional rivals like the Panthers (2015) and Falcons (2016) both going on Super Bowl runs, and our team infamously finishing with an identical 7-9 record for four out of the five seasons during this stretch. I know you’re probably wondering how this qualifies as “happy.” I’m getting to that, don’t worry.
In 2017, we absolutely crushed the draft. We got Marshon Lattimore and Ryan Ramczyk in the first round, picked up Marcus Williams in the second, and then had a stellar third round including Alvin Kamara, Alex Anzalone, and Trey Hendrickson. This totally reopened our Super Bowl window with Drew Brees. In the spring of my seventh-grade school year, I used to pass the time in class by creating my own full NFL mock drafts. This was all done completely on pen and paper while I was supposed to be doing math equations. I remembered I had us drafting Reuben Foster out of Alabama in the first round. Funny enough, the Saints were actually going to take him if the 49ers didn’t trade up to one spot ahead of us to steal him. We ended up getting Ramczyk with that pick, so this was actually a blessing in disguise. Fast forward to fall of eighth grade, and the 2017-18 football season is upon us. We started off 0-2 and then exploded for eight straight wins. We would finish 11-5, win the NFC South, and both Alvin Kamara and Marshawn Lattimore each won their respective Rookie of the Year trophies. The Saints literally swept both the Offensive and Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2017. I’ve always thought that was just awesome.
This whole season was my first real taste of how much fun watching the Saints can be. In 2011, I totally took it for granted. Now in 2017, I can fully appreciate the good times that we were entering. We had a young core of players with the best rookie class in the NFL. Our defense started this super cool group celebration thing after turnovers, where they would all pose for a photo together in the endzone. Other teams would quickly copy this, but my New Orleans Saints started that trend. Alvin Kamara was the slowest fastest runner I had ever seen, nonchalantly scoring touchdowns and then chowing down on some airheads on the sideline afterwards. He was the “Zoom” half of the “Boom & Zoom” running back tandem with Mark Ingram. The Saints were finally back. Life was good.
After an absolute blast of a regular season, it was time for some playoff football. The Saints were hosting our division rival, Carolina Panthers, in the Wild Card Round. My dad had two tickets and took me. This wasn’t my first Saints game nor was it my last. This isn’t even the most memorable Saints game I ever went to, not even close. However, this game is my second defining moment as a Saints fan. The Saints had swept the Panthers in the regular season that year. In the playoff game, we jumped out to an early lead. The Panthers would show some fight to make things interesting and even have a chance to steal the game at the very end. We sacked Cam Newton on the final play to win it, and our defense did the group celebration right in front of the endzone that I was sitting behind. I just remember how loud the dome was in that moment. It just felt like a culmination of so many different things. The Saints were finally good again (advancing in the playoffs), we just went 3-0 against a divisional rival, and we were arguably the most fun / intriguing team in the entire league at the time. I firmly believe that all of these components added up to result in the dome erupting in the way that it did after that sack. I’m not saying that this was the loudest the dome has ever been, nor am I saying that this is one of the greatest Superdome moments ever. Neither of those statements would be true. However, I am saying that this moment was super impactful for me on a personal level. This was the first time where I truly experienced how fun being a Saints fan can be in person. Walking out the exits, I remember seeing some poor Panthers fan getting heckled by every single Who Dat that he walked by. I thought that was hilarious. I was so fired up. Everything was perfect.
We don’t need to talk about how that season ended the very next weekend. We don’t even need to talk about any of the playoff losses in the preceding years. By the end of that Panthers game, my Saints fandom had been fully solidified. It was totally set in stone, never to change again. I went through all of high school and the first three years of college at LSU while watching every game. Times got dark with Dennis Allen, but it was nothing that I couldn’t handle. It’s times like those that reveal who the real diehards are anyway. In my freshman year of college, I started a social media account as a creative outlet for me to talk about Saints and LSU football. The account is called @Sports.Beer.Jokes on TikTok and Instagram, if you’re interested. In the fall of my senior year of college, Tyler Shough took over the reigns as the Saints starting Quarterback. As I prepare to enter the “real world,” it seems that Saints fans are preparing to enter the “Shough era.” I am ultra excited about the future of this team and am thrilled to have the opportunity to write about them on this platform. The team has so much momentum, and there is just an overall positive aura around this whole offseason. Our golden age is ahead of us. Who Dat!!!
