Sept. 26, 2006
 
MIKE BAYHAM: Game Day in New Orleans
 
By Mike Bayham
 
South Louisiana (Special to HNN) -- For Saints fans, things were much different last year around this time.
 
The image of the battered stadium, with part of its torn roof hanging along its side, symbolized the devastation that visited New Orleans. And then there was Ted Koppel’s erroneous statement on nationwide television that the Superdome would likely need to be torn down, which did nothing to lift residents’ spirits.
 
And then there wounds inflicted by members of the Saints organization. Benson’s angry tirades about Louisiana and his flirting with a permanent move to San Antonio, Joe Horn’s badmouthing of the local fans’ commitment to the organization compared to those of south Texas and the whining of another player, Kendyl Jacox, about how hard life has been for the collection of burly millionaires to have to stay in hotels in two different states during home stands.
 
Oops! Almost forgot Coach Jim Haslett and Quarterback Aaron Brooks’s significant contributions to the myriad of Saints fans’ miseries.
 
It was all too much for this longtime suffering supporter of the beleaguered football club, in which I found myself avidly rooting against the team partly out of frustration with the owner and the goof offs charitably referred to as “starters.” However my real hope was that a totally wrecked season from a competition standpoint would result in a player-personnel purge and a high-draft pick.
 
Or to borrow a Vietnam-era euphemism, “destroy the franchise in order to save it.”
 
In this deed, both Haslett and Brooks had my full confidence and they did not disappoint.
 
The twin banes of my football fan existence amassed an NFC worst 3-13.
 
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Mike Bayham is a political consultant in south Louisiana and can be reached at MikeBayham@yahoo.com.