Free agency season just started in the NFL, and as should be expected, the Saints have already lost one prominent player, linebacker Scott Fujita. The thought of even one piece from our title-winning team going missing has sent some Saints fans into tears. There are two groups of people: those upset at the Saints for letting Fujita go, and those upset at Fujita for leaving the Saints. Regardless of which camp you’re in (or whether you’re upset with both), you need to calm down and realize that football is about two things a) winning games and b) making money. Sometimes in that order, sometimes not. While Scott Fujita is a class act, stand-up guy who has been a great friend to the city of New Orleans, it’s clear that the ownership and/or personnel staffs and/or coaches felt that he wasn’t worth what the salary he commanded on the free agent market. And for Fujita, it’s clear that the positive aspects of playing in our wonderful city for the defending Super Bowl champions didn’t outweigh the millions of dollars more he’ll be making in Cleveland. I’m going to explain why you shouldn’t be mad at the Saints or at Scott Fujita. Continue reading ‘people who are mad that fujita’s leaving’
Tag Archive for 'saints'
So we just won the Super Bowl. The city is pretty much at a standstill as people celebrate. The Saints are on top of the NFL…and we’re still not the favorites to win next year’s Super Bowl. So I say, “Screw you, Vegas oddsmakers.” (The Colts are 6-1, the Saints and Chargers are 8-1). And I say screw you to all those commentators who talked about how Peyton Manning lost the game with his interception, which Tracy Porter returned for a game-sealing touchdown. The pundits treated a 13-3 team like miserable underdogs. Then we won. And they still think we’re not as good—consider The Onion’s take on things: New Orleans moves to No. 3 in NFL power rankings. Too bad—we have this:
and nobody else does. You can respect us or not. It really doesn’t matter to me. Quarterbacks like Mark Sanchez, Brett Favre, and Peyton Manning got more commercial airtime than Drew Brees during the Super Bowl, but those three didn’t get to lift the MVP trophy and film the “I’m going to Disney World!” commercial. People are acting like Drew Brees is just now a member of the NFL’s elite QBs, when anyone with a brain would have seen the numbers Brees has been putting up ever since he arrived in New Orleans and realized just how phenomenal a player he is. Clearly he was already among the elite, and you moronic pundits are just late to the party. Continue reading ‘the fact that people still don’t respect the Saints’
So there’s this little football game that takes place every year and it’s kind of a big deal and millions of people watch it on TV. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? Maybe you just watch for the commercials or the wardrobe malfunctions? It’s the Super Bowl. And this year our beloved Black & Gold Boys are in it, so New Orleans is in a state of giddy delirium. But if you want to go, you pretty much have to pay through the nose, since the powers that be only see fit to distribute a few thousand tickets (at the merely eye-popping price of $800) to actual fans of the two teams involved.
Now, for what it’s worth I want to state that there’s not a chance I’d actually go to the Super Bowl at $800 a ticket plus all the travel expenses involved—that’s a lot of money, and besides, we still have two performances of Footloose this weekend (though we canceled our Sunday show, natch), so I’m a little too busy anyway. So I’m not that personally involved. But I’m sure my parents, lifelong Saints fans—my mother grew up going to games in Tulane Stadium with her father, and even attended a Super Bowl many years ago—would jump at the opportunity. It’s just that when the price goes from $800 to $1400 or $1600 or $1800 that things start getting a little too unaffordable. And it’s utterly ridiculous that out of 76,500 seats only a few go to actual fans getting tickets directly from the teams. The Saints sold 4,600 tickets to season ticket holders who were chosen in a weighted lottery, with the Colts likely offering 6,000 or so to their season ticket holders (I saw that 6k number on a Saints message board but was unable to confirm it). That’s out of something like 13,000-14,000 tickets each of the two teams received. Everything else went out to corporate sponsors, employees, and the like. I realize the NFL is a business* but why do the league and its teams give so few tickets to actual fans? Not to mention that only a third or so of the tickets go to the two teams involved—the majority of tickets go to the NFL and its sponsors and affiliates, or to the other 30 NFL teams. Continue reading ‘super bowl ticket allocations’
I’m under the weather with a bit of a cold and too lazy to form a lengthy, sustained argument on one topic, so here’s a smattering of tidbits on things I hate but couldn’t make a full post out of. Continue reading ‘miscellany’
If you’re second-guessing anything from the Saints’ 26-23 win over the Falcons, it’s probably that fake field goal late in the 4th quarter. I’ll get back to that later, but the real mistakes were a few clock management errors that made the result far closer than it should have been. First, the Saints didn’t run enough time off the clock at the end of the 1st half, enabling the Falcons to mount a scoring drive of their own; second, the pass-happy playcalling on the drive leading up to that fake field goal let the Falcons save their timeouts and gave them more time to drive down the field for a tie or win. Continue reading ‘bad clock management #4′
You’ve seen it happen tons of times. A team gets the ball with a few seconds left in the 1st half and rather than take a shot with a Hail Mary pass, the quarterback takes a knee and the team trots off to the locker room. But with a few seconds left, why not take a shot? This is yet another example of bad football coaching: teams play it safe instead of making the play that would maximize their chance of scoring points (and thus their chance of winning). One example occurred in last night’s Saints-Patriots game. Continue reading ‘first half kneeldowns’
I watched the Saints’ win over the Falcons. After the Falcons turned the ball over on downs with 1:49 left, I thought, “I realize they can’t quite run the clock out, but with an 11-point lead the Saints should kneel on the ball and then punt on 4th down. I realize this is one of those things where people are going to say, “Kevin, you’re only saying this because of what happened.” Well, that’s true; had the Saints run for a first down, had there not been an injury, had there not been a fumble, no, I probably wouldn’t be writing this right now. (I’d still be right, though.) But I definitely thought the Saints should have taken a knee. And my dad said the same thing when I talked to him after the game, and I checked a few message boards and saw at least one more person agreed with us. Click here for my explanation.