BillyCarpenter1

http://www.wwltv.com/sports/jimhende....67c97d99.html

Henderson Commentary: Saints could go boom or bust
10:19 AM CDT on Tuesday, September 2, 2003

Jim Henderson / WWL-TV Sports Director


The last four Super Bowl winners have all been new. Three of those four weren't even in the playoffs the year before they won it all.


With that in mind, you would apparently do well to pick as this year's Super Bowl champion, not the defending Super Bowl Champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but a good team from a year ago that narrowly failed to make the playoffs, is relatively young, and has made off-season changes to shore up apparent weaknesses.




A team just like...the New Orleans Saints?


On paper they fit the description. On the pre-season playing field, they defied description.


As a collective whole, I can't remember four more dismal pre-season performances in the 25 years I've been covering this team.


But you don't know when looking at the pre-season if you're looking into a mirror that accurately reflects the regular season to come. Or one of those fun-house mirrors that distorts features and magnifies every structural blemish.


We can only hope we saw the latter even though the Superdome was certainly no "fun-house" during the two performances that book-ended a woeful pre-season.


After the season opener in Seattle a week from this Sunday few will remember and no one will care what the Saints' pre-season record was. Should they win in Seattle, with Houston coming here for the home opener in week two, most everyone will be saying that the Saints are indeed this year's sleeper to go all the way.


They will have reinforced the notion that they are this year's "stealth bomber" flying under the pundits' radar. In pre-season they certainly did nothing to elevate their profile and attract suspicion - only the suspicion of their fans.