Recalling Saints vs. Falcons
New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton sees Monday night’s matchup with rival Atlanta as a separate event from the 10th anniversary of the Superdome’s reopening after Hurricane Katrina.
The game and celebration will be in the same place at the same time, and the same teams will be playing.
Yet Payton sounds wary of blurring the line between the two, if for no other reason than out of respect for the unique, transcendent qualities of the Saints’ first true home game after being displaced by the storm for the entire 2005 season.
“Having been through the actual opening — that was emotional,” Payton said of the Saints’ 23-3 victory over the Falcons on Monday night, Sept. 25, 2006.
The reopening of Superdome, and the rebirth of a community it symbolized, “is not as significant to this game,” Payton continued. “This is an important division game ... one team is 0-2 and trying to get a win, and another team that’s 1-1.”
That winless team happens to be the one from New Orleans, where only a handful of players remain from the 2006 squad.
A number of players were in high school — some in middle school — a decade ago. By the time they joined the Saints, New Orleans was again home to a vibrant nightlife and restaurant scene, and the blue tarps covering damaged roofs had long since vanished.
So while the 2006 Saints drew a profound sense of purpose from playing for fans struggling through the early stages of disaster recovery, current realities in New Orleans simply do not provide for such a scenario, said veteran right tackle Zach Strief, a rookie when the dome reopened.
“You can’t create that type of emotion. You can’t create that type of a feel,” Strief said, adding that the motivation to win Monday has more to do with the fact that “guys are tired of losing and it’s a lot of work and there’s a lot of prideful people in here.”
Falcons coach Dan Quinn still expects the energy in the Superdome to exceed that of a typical game.
Quinn was a defensive assistant with Miami in 2005, when the Dolphins played the displaced Saints at LSU’s Tiger Stadium.In 2006, he caught moments of the dome’s reopening on television at Dolphins headquarters.
“Getting a chance to play in games where the crowd is unique and there is a buildup for it, honestly, it is a real honour and a privilege to get to coach and play in games where it is rocking and loud,” Quinn said.
“It is why we love to compete, because you get to be in moments like that.”