First of all I am not ripping San Antonio or any other city for helping out with both the Saints and the citizens of New Orleans in a time like this.
I am ripping that F*ckstick McCombs for being a thoughtless, douchbag when the people of New Orleans are hanging on by a thread.
All I can say is that it sucks to have you NFL team owned by a dirty Fing car dealer with dirty fing car dealer friends schemeing to make some quick loot off of a natural disaster.
Frankly, I'd rather have Jerry Jones and I can't stand that S.O.B.

Peter Finney: Red 'The Vulture' McCombs

Thursday, 2:10 p.m.

By Peter Finney
Sports Columnist

I didn’t know a vulture had four legs.

“This is a great opportunity for the city and we need to seize the moment, jump into it with all four legs,’’ said Red McCombs.

That’s Red (The Vulture) McCombs, former owner of the Minnesota Vikings, speaking from his hometown, which happens to be San Antonio.

“Every effort needs to be made to tie up the Saints for this season, including having people stand in front of the Alamodome singing, ‘When the Saints Come Marching In.’ ‘’

What class.

In a stricken, evacuated, underwater New Orleans, they’ve only begun to count the dead and here you have a former NFL owner dancing on the coffin, telling the San Antonio Express-News he believes a permanent move of Tom Benson’s franchise would be supported by league owners.

Red The Vulture. What a sleaze-ball.

There’s a time for everything. This is not the time to talk about moving a franchise – permanently - from a city that has served as the host of nine Super Bowls.

This is a time to open your arms to those who have lost homes, lost loved ones, lost everything, which is exactly what the city of San Antonio has done.

It has been open arms to Tom Benson’s football team, in the way of practice facilities, also to an estimated 12,000 of the displaced, in the way of shelters, rooms for the elderly, tons and tons of food, and runaway charity.

In San Antonio, you have someone like Famous Washington, a pharmacist, who grew up in New Orleans, sheltering 16 members of his extended family, from 9-months-old to 77-years-old.
In San Antonio, you also have Red (The Vulture) McCombs.

Millionaire McCombs, a longtime friend of Tom Benson, bought the Vikings a few years ago, and unloaded them, after failing to get a new stadium.

Now he’s saying, if Benson wants to make a permanent move to Alamo city, he’ll get the green light from the owners because, as McCombs puts it, “Tom sits on the management council and has a lot of clout.’’

What do I think?

In the post-Katrina world, I have little doubt Benson would like to relocate to San Antonio.

Forever.

But what about Paul Tagliabue, commissioner of the NFL?

That’s the billion-dollar question.

Because a vote of the owners would stop a move, because the commissioner owns the ultimate clout, Tagliabue sits in an emperor’s chair.

A city that has been the crown jewel among Super Bowl hosts has suffered the greatest catastrophe in the history of this country, assuming you place what happened on 8/29 above 9/11.

All of which leaves the commissioner facing several questions:

How crucial, how fair to the future of the NFL, is it keeping the Saints in Louisiana over the short term, in New Orleans over the long haul?

If it turns out Katrina KO’d the Superdome as the Saints’ home, where can the team play on an interim basis while a new home is being built?

What part – financially – would the league play in a “new’’ Superdome?
Given the circumstances, what part might the federal government be willing to play in such a revival?

Looking down the road, waiting for a renovated Dome, or a new one, in New New Orleans, all sorts of options would face the gypsy Saints of, let’s say, 2006 and 2007.

Perhaps playing all home games in Tiger Stadium?

Perhaps scattering them among Baton Rouge, Shreveport, Mobile, Jackson, Miss.?

And San Antonio?

Keep in mind, while the (North) Carolina Panthers, who the Saints play Sunday, were waiting to move into their new home in Charlotte, their interim home was across the state line, in Clemson, S.C.

Who knows what the future holds.

In a long-term manner of speaking, Katrina has made it a moment of truth.
For Tom Benson.

For Paul Tagliabue.

For the moment, my message to Red (The Vulture) McCombs is simple: Stop doing the boogie on a fleur de lis grave.

It’s unbecoming.

Let’s see how it all plays out.

New Orleans is down.

But not out.

How do I know?

Well, Paul Prudhomme is planning to show up Friday, leading a caravan of trucks to his offices in Elmwood.

“We’ve got generators, food and trailers and we’ll be in a parking lot cooking for anyone who needs it,’’ he said. “We’re going home, baby.’’

From Lew Pasquarelli's tip sheet:

• More on the Saints: Maybe we're misreading the tea leaves, but having spent a couple days with New Orleans Saints players and team officials last weekend, we think we've got a pretty good understanding of their sentiments. So you can ignore most of the rhetoric about wanting to play all their games in Baton Rouge, La. The overwhelming choice of the players is to stay in San Antonio for home games. In fact, several veterans expressed that opinion in a meeting with NFL Players Association executive director Gene Upshaw Thursday. "I know they expressed their concerns to Gene," said coach Jim Haslett, "and we also expressed our concerns to commissioner Tagliabue. I don't think you have to be a brain surgeon to figure out that you'd like to play the games where you're practicing."
One "home" game that might be a natural to play at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge is the Oct. 30 contest with Miami, and former LSU coach Nick Saban. But some Saints players aren't even sold on that. "It just seems like there's so much going on [in Baton Rouge] will all the evacuated people there. I'm not sure they can even have a game there," said wide receiver Donte' Stallworth. Indeed, the city's population has essentially doubled in the past week, because of all the people who fled other parts of Louisiana -- hotels are packed and the influx has created traffic gridlock.

Officials at the Alamodome have cleared Oct. 2, in the event the league decides to have the Saints play their scheduled home game against Buffalo that day in San Antonio. City officials are working on details of a deal that would put the Saints in the Alamodome for at least four games. There is, as has been noted in the past week, great sensitivity to deal with here. San Antonio officials don't want to come off looking like vultures, poised to snatch a professional team from a crippled city. But the reality is that San Antonio would love to have NFL football and the Saints aren't going back to New Orleans anytime soon.

Some players have calmed down about having to play their so-called "home opener" at Giants Stadium on Sept. 19. It remains a sore spot, too, with team officials. Most allow that there may not have been many viable alternate sites. But the Saints lobbied hard to have the game played on Saturday night, Sept. 17. The way the schedule now stands, the team must travel to Carolina for Sunday's season opener. Then the Saints play the Monday game against the Giants, won't arrive back in San Antonio until early Tuesday morning, and will have a short week to prepare for another road game, at Minnesota on Sept. 25.

Whodi, sorry you happen to live in the town that happens to be doing this, but trust me, Red McCombs isn't the only person involved in this. Business leaders, city officials, the mayor and govenor. I spent seven months in S.A. and fell in love with the city. We are not blasting the general population but you have to admit that it would not hurt your feelings as bad with them moving to your hometown. When they were talking about moving to Mississippi I was semi-thrilled about it. However, since the current events have happened, if, (IF) they were to move, (even to MS), I could not be faithful to them.
I think we are getting ahead of our selves on this matter anyway.