Welp, October went pretty much the way we all expected it to go, don't you think?

Welcome to November, bitches. Onward and upward. Or something. I'd have had this post up Monday or Tuesday, but by golly, I just came out flat. Bit of a letdown game, I guess. Hey, it happens to everybody right? Hard to maintain focus week in and week out. If you'd have seen me typing yesterday, it would have been obvious to you that I was disinterested and didn't really give much of a shit. Meh, just gotta look at the film and correct a few things. Then let it go and move on. I'll do better next week, promise. This was definitely a wake up call. Say, how many of those do I have left this season? Wanna be sure I use 'em all.

Games like Sunday's shit sandwich are, for me anyway, the hardest ones to muster up any desire to write about. It's just no fun, it's a chore. I mean, if the Saints don't give enough of a shit to show up and take the candy from the baby, then how the hell am I supposed to conjure up any motivation of my own?

Fortunately, Jeff Duncan and John DeShazier have been all over it since Sunday. They both nailed it, summing up my thoughts on the matter pretty much exactly. Good stuff, gentlemen. #spon

This dude? Uh… not so much. Not that anyone should be surprised, these days every single loss comes with the inevitable (and excruciatingly banal) sanctimonious lectures about who does and who does not possess an adequate level of #standing to call himself a "real fan." Sigh. I'll never understand why it makes so many people feel better after a loss to point their finger at random strangers and shout "BANDWAGON FAN!!!"

How about you take your righteous indignation and shove it up your ass, Danny?

This is why people who usually just read the news should refrain from editorializing. Because they suck at it. Probably ought to stick to just regurgitating and condensing the articles of Legitimate Media™ types 10 times a day for those who can't handle compound sentences and more than a handful of paragraphs, Danny. They seem to love that kind of thing over at Saintsreport, so you've got that going for ya. PAGE VIEWS FOR EVERYONE!!!

Pop quiz, hot shot: At what point does a series of isolated incidents become a full-blown permanent aspect of a team's identity?

Because, personally, I think I've reached that point with all this inexplicably pissing away a couple or few gimmes per year bullshit. They still piss me off, but they no longer surprise me. It's just part of who they are, what they do. Might as well learn to live with it.

This just in: Everything is not just fine.

Uh oh, I hope that didn't jeopardize my fan #standing. Hope I'm not being a "bandwagon fan" here. Pardon me while I see if I can cover my ass here before some asshole accuses me of sedition…

Yes, they're still 5-3 and leading the division. Yes, I remember the Bad Old Days. Yes, we're still right smack damn dab in the middle of the Golden Age of Saints Football. Yes, they're still capable of beating any team in the league on Any Given Sunday. Yes, the Saints are probably still gonna make the playoffs for the third straight year, for the first time in franchise history.

Yes, the Rams were all super-motivated and shit, or whatever. Just like Tampa was, I guess. I suppose it was just bad luck that the soft underbelly of the Saints' schedule just happened to end up including two road games against teams who were all pissed off and desperate and were able to muster the kind of steely determination and refusal to lose that's only possible for shitty teams who are mad as hell and aren't gonna take it anymore.

It goes a little something like that, right? IT'S THE NFL!!! ANY GIVEN SUNDAY!!!

Yeah, well, fuck that noise. "Any Given Sunday!!!" is a rationalization. An after-the-fact excuse for yet another inexplicable loss. It would be one thing if the Rams had played lights-out, had the best game of their lives, played way above their heads for one afternoon like it was their Super Bowl, or anything even resembling something along those lines.

But that's not what happened. The Rams were no less shitty than they usually are. The Saints just beat them at their own game. Of shittiness. Just like they did last year against Cleveland and Arizona.

And just like they tried to do in 2009 against Miami and Washington. And St. Louis, for that matter. The difference then was that it was 2009, and the ball was bouncing in the Saints' favor to such a mindboggling degree that, despite the Saints' best efforts, the Football Gods simply wouldn't allow them to piss those games away.

A lot of people have also pointed to the week 10 loss to the 0-8 Rams in 2007 too, but I (conveniently) chalk that one up as a one-off. After all, while the Saints were riding a 4-game win streak at the time, they were still only 4-4, just trying to keep their head above water. They'd been blown out 3 times already, and on and on like that.

Chalking that one up as a one-off is convenient for me because that way it doesn't undermine my hypothesis that this team has been in their own heads ever since that 13-0 start in 2009. That 13-0 start, and the eventual Championship (high five!) were inarguably the high points of this franchise's history, and of course I wouldn't trade them for the world. But it's become pretty obvious to me that they carried repercussions we've been feeling ever since.

And it starts right at the top with Sean Payton and Drew Brees, they're as guilty as anybody.

Oh sure, they say all the right things about consistency and maintaining focus and never taking any opponent for granted and staying on an even keel and not being overconfident and putting your best effort forth every week and all that good bullshit.

Of course they do, both of those guys are as media-savvy as they come. (Not that you should confuse "media savvy" with "giving them whatever they want and never pissing them off and making them bitch and moan on Twitter by refusing to tell them anything and everything they might want to know at any given time." Two different things.) And I don't doubt for a second that it's genuine, of course they believe what they're saying. So do all the other guys when they trot out all their own favorite football platitudes.

But talk is cheap. And it's becoming increasingly evident that this team, top to bottom, simply aren't practicing what they preach.

They do read their own press clippings. (Especially after a particularly impressive win, or series of wins.) They do buy into their own hype. They do get complacent. They do think they can just strut into a stadium and the opponent is gonna soil their pants and lay down because "OMG IT'S THE FUCKIN' SAINTS!!!" And when they do that, they pretty much invariably end up getting their balls handed to them. They can deny it all they want, but the results on the field don't support their denials.

Memo to the Saints: Sack the fuck up already.

"Yeah but Wang, easier said than done. It's the NFL. Any Given Sunday and all. Letdowns and 'trap games' and such are actual things. There's a reason why they're long standing football clichés. This isn't exclusive to the Saints, it happens to everybody."

Touché. I was curious about that my own self, so I did a little cursory internet research. And I suppose the good news is that, while I wouldn't exactly call it "common" I wouldn't necessarily call it "uncommon" either. Uh… high five?

Tampa lost to the 5-11 Jags and 5-11 Falcons in 2003, the year after Tampa won the Super Bowl. The Patriots lost to the 4-12 Dolphins in 2004, the year after they won the Super Bowl. Pittsburgh lost to the 2-14 Raiders in 2006. The Giants lost to the 4-12 Browns in 2008. And in 2009, Pittsburgh lost to the 5-11 Browns, the 5-11 Raiders and the 4-12 Chiefs. (Of course, the 2009 Steelers went 9-7 and missed the playoffs. So, you know, just sayin'.)

So, sure, I'll concede that this isn't necessarily unique to the Saints. Doesn't make it any less disturbing though. Doesn't make it any less of a waste. Doesn't make it any less of a weakness, a character flaw on their part. And it damn sure doesn't make the losses count any less than they otherwise would.

If anything, if you're gonna go all "intangible" with it, you could argue that a loss like this one is somehow mystically worth a little more than "just one" if for no other reason than it's such a fuckin' waste.

"Yeah but Wang, it's also a WAKE UP CALL!!!"

Yeah, kinda like how the Tampa game was a wake up call? Like how that rousing "Hey assholes, play better!" speech from Sean Payton before the Indy game was a wake up call? What's the shelf life of these so-called wake up calls anyway? And how many fuckin' wake up calls do you think they're gonna need? Ya think two losses in three weeks is enough to wake them up for good? I suppose pissing away half of the soft underbelly of the schedule (again) is gonna finally do the trick, right?

#wegotthis Or something.

Some asshole on tee vee the other day proclaimed that the NFC was "the Packers and a bunch of 10-6 teams." I'm sure Message Board Guy thinks he's an idiot, who has no clue what he's talking about, and anybody who gives that notion the slightest credence is a FAKE SAINTS FAN(!!!) who ought to be thrown off the BANDWAGON(!!!) due to lack of #standing.

Let's all pause and take this opportunity to remind ourselves that Message Board Guy is, as always, full of shit. Message Board Guy thinks being a "Real™ Fan" requires that you insist that the Saints suck when they're playing great, and insist that everything's just fine when they're playing like shit. (Because, of course, he's the only person on earth who has the slightest fucking clue what he's talking about and everybody else is wrong.)

The asshole on tee vee is right. Until the Saints get out of their own heads, locate their testicles, and figure out a way to keep themselves awake without pissing a game away every other week, they'll continue to be little more than an underachieving pseudo-contender.

Meantime, quit telling me (and anybody else who will listen) that "THE SKY IS NOT FALLING!!!" (Did you come up with that one all by yourself?) Nobody gives a fuck about the sky. The sky is completely irrelevant. Nobody even knows what you're talking about with hackneyed bullshit platitudes like that.

But it's not like all the pieces aren't in place, right? They've shown us as much on the field. Every now and then, at least. So it's not like I'd put it past them to reel off eleven straight wins and bring home another Lombardi.

You know, assuming they feel like it.

Until then, I suppose at least we can all hang our hats on the fact that "Meh, it's only one game." Am I right, Junior Galette?

Here's hoping the next one "only counts for one" too. Because I'm sure that'll make it all better. High five!