Super Random Thoughts
I’m all over the map heading into this Super Bowl matchup between the Saints and Colts. I find that my loyalties and my predictions on how the game is going to go down change hour by hour. Here’s just a few thoughts that have been swirling around in my head, on the ‘09 Saints versus the ‘99 Rams, Reggie’s folly, Jim Irsay as Emperor Palpatine, and where the smart money is going in tonight’s game.
The Saints are the New Rams… almost
There are certainly eerie parallels between the 2009 Saints and 1999 Rams — most notably in an offense that has suddenly taken off, led by a cast-off quarterback who is nearly a messiah among the team’s fans. They are poised to deliver a championship to a city that knows nothing of football success. And they are doing it with a team that has, collectively, almost no experience in the playoffs, let alone in the Super Bowl itself.
There are lots of reasons to feel kinship with the Saints. After all, New Orleans is St. Louis’ kindred sister on the mighty River Mississip. Her culture, food, music, and taste in french colonial brick architecture steamed up the river and formed a crucial part of the backbone of this city.
But the deep mystical hoodoo of the swamp stayed put. New Orleans is uniquely superstitious among American cities — a city fascinated and surrounded by ghosts, moaning blues to keep those ancient spirits soothed. Maybe it’s because the dead there live above ground like the rest of us, seemingly ready to open the doors of their tombs and rejoin us if the party is good enough.
In celebration, though, the two cities are quite different. Kurt Warner delivered the signature cry of the Rams’ 1999 win — an earnest, overloud “Thank you Jesus!” that will forever cast St Louis sports in an evangelical, tent-raising light. But perhaps this wasn’t out of character. The win was a deliverance for us, a welcoming to the kingdom of football heaven after decades of unrewarded faith. But Kurt refused to take the glory alone for the team’s acts, instead passing them on to his deity of choice. In a sense, Kurt with his selflessness and his piousness took some of the fun out of winning for a heathen like me. What’s wrong with just partying and enjoying the moment? Why did he have to get all Jesus on us?
If the Saints win, I expect it to be a much more heathen-friendly affair. I expect nothing less than a raucous week-long jazz funeral to lay rest to all the previous seasons of deeply flawed Saints teams. Rather than celebrate the win as a deliverance, the Saints should celebrate the passing of a culture of failure, loudly and joyously laying to rest those ghosts of the past.
Tags: 1999 Rams, Admiral Akbar, Death Star, Drew Barrymore, Evil Empire, Fever PItch, Indianapolis Colts, Its a Trap, Jimmy Fallon, Kim Kardashian, Kurt Warner, Mr Stadium Scoreboard Marriage Proposal Guy, New Orleans Saints, Oddsmakers, Peyton Manning, Pierre Garcon, Reggie Bush, Robot Chicken, Super Bowl
