SmashMouth

The chant started while players were on their way into the New Orleans Saints’ victorious postgame locker room last Sunday at New England:

“We’re going home! We’re going home!”

Then a few hours later, when the flight attendant announced, “Welcome back to New Orleans,” the team plane erupted in cheers.

The Saints (2-1) were away for 29 days after evacuating to the Dallas/Fort Worth area because of Hurricane Ida. Players have spent this week talking about how much they appreciate spending time with family, sleeping in their own beds and getting back into a normal routine.



There has also been plenty of talk about how excited they are to finally play a real home game in the Superdome on Sunday (1 p.m. ET, Fox) against the New York Giants (0-3). Their Week 1 home game against the Green Bay Packers was moved to a neutral site in Jacksonville, Florida.

“That was the first thing that I thought about, riding past the [team hotel where they had parked their cars downtown], riding past Caesars Superdome: ‘Man, we got a home game in the Superdome!’” quarterback Jameis Winston said. “Like, ‘Man, we’re back in our city.’ That’s what hit me.”

The Saints haven’t been waiting for this moment just the past four weeks. It has actually been nearly two years since they got to enjoy the Superdome at full capacity because of COVID-19 restrictions in 2020. Linebacker Demario Davis said he "can’t wait" to hear the place at full volume again.

“It’s going to be electric in that place, for sure,” Davis said. “I just know what this thing means to the city and the fan base. It's going to be crazy in that building.”

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