Games like this one don’t come around very often. In fact, I can’t even remember the last time the Saints had a game where Reggie Bush wasn’t the prettiest, most shirtlessly photographed metrosexual on the field. You might have to go all the way back to the Dallas game in 2006. And that turned out pretty well, so we’re gonna go ahead and take it as an omen.

I’m torn on whether to watch this game on ESPN, or to tune in to the simulcast on Bravo. On one hand, the pregame is apparently gonna consist of a couple of Queer Eye reruns. But I’ll be listening to WWL anyway, trying to make sure I’m at least as sloshed as Bobby going in. On the other hand, Ted Allen calling a football game promises to be a singular experience. Not to mention Tom Colicchio roaming the sidelines asking the coaches what they have planned and doing his patented "sniff & sneer" response, with the occasional eye roll thrown in for lagniappe. And the complete absence of Hank Williams Jr is always a strong selling point.

This matchup has been broken down more than a Jennifer Carroll butter sauce at Restaurant Wars. Deconstructed worse than a Ron Duprat paella. And the results are as confusing and incomprehensible as a braised leek being presented as a "scallop." (I mean, seriously, what the fuck?)

If you’re anything like me, you’ve read previews of this game until your eyes bled. And you’ve probably cherrypicked a handful of stats to hold onto like a security blanket while you do the best you can to reassure yourself that the closet door can’t be opened from the inside. I know I have.

The Patriots are 1-3 on the road, with the lone win coming in London over the Bucs. They’re 0-2 against teams which currently have winning records. They’re 16th in rushing offense and 14th in rushing defense. They lost once to the Jets and only beat Buffalo by one point. They can be beaten in the second half, and the Saints… well… can’t. That kind of stuff.

And those things are all great. I’ll be the first to admit that, on paper, the Saints appear to be the better team. Slightly. Very slightly. And ordinarily, that would be more than enough for me. After all, in the NFL, the better team usually wins. Usually. And for the most part, the stat sheet will tell you pretty reliably who the better team is.

So why is it that I’m having such a hard time this week trying to muster up the bravado of an unabashed homer?

It’s because I’m intimidated, that’s why. I’m not proud of it. But there it is.

Balboa: I’M AFRAID, ALRIGHT?!? YOU WANNA HEAR ME SAY IT? YOU WANNA BREAK ME DOWN? ALRIGHT, I’M AFRAID! For the first time in my life, I’m afraid.

I’m intimidated because for the first time in a long, long time, the "intangible" factors are simply too compelling for me to be able to do what I usually do, which is to dismiss them out of hand as Message Board Guy quackery. I’m not used to giving credence to such poppycock, and it’s left me confused and irritable.

But this week? I just can’t get past the fact that, all else aside, the Saints are still the upstarts here. While the Patriots have played, and won, about 50 of these kinds of games over the last decade. The Patriots do primetime, national tee vee, "playoff atmosphere" games on the Big Stage what, once or twice a month? They play games like this in their sleep.

The Saints? Not so much. Maybe never, in fact. We’ve all been talking about uncharted territory for a solid month now, but this is a whole other level of uncharted territory. And anybody who tells you he has the slightest clue how the Saints are gonna respond to it is talking out of his ass.

It’s like when you were a teenager going one on one in the driveway against your dad. You knew you were getting to the point where you could probably take him, but you were already half-beaten between the ears. You knew he was gonna be throwing elbows all over the place, but you also knew there wasn’t a whole lot you could do about it. Because one of the perks of being the dad is being the de facto referee.

Sure, you could opt to just rain threes down upon him, but you knew that if that worked too well, he’d be able to shame you into cutting it out and "playing like a man." At which point, he’d start throwing elbows again. And you’d end up putting a knee to his groin and you’d end up losing via ejection/forfeit and grounded for a week. Or you keep raining the threes, win, piss him off and end up grounded anyway. Shit! What do you do?

Oh sure, eventually you beat him. And you didn’t get grounded, you got the hat tip and high five. It was all in your head (except the elbows, those were on your face.) But it being in your head is the reason your win came about 50 losses later than it could have.

Usually, being the better team is enough. Sometimes it’s not.

jeffrey: Hey Wang, quit being a pussy.

Touche.

I haven’t the slightest clue how the Saints are going to keep notorious Saints-killer Randy Moss from… well, killing them. Pressuring Brady is a decent idea, assuming you can afford to take 4 or 5 personal foul flags for breaching the perimeter of the Brady Bubble. Hey, dad’s the ref.

Fortunately for us, it’s easy to convince ourselves that the Saints can’t lose Monday night, one way or the other.

Win, and you’re validated. Bona fide. You’ve got confidence spewing out from every orifice. You may have to do a good bit of cleaning up after yourself, but it’s totally worth it.

Lose, and you’re humbled. You know that you’re not quite ready for primetime just yet, but at the same time, you know that you can retake the test and ace it a few weeks down the road, as long as you study like a motherfucker.

Either outcome can be taken as a positive. Especially considering what we’ve been reading all week about how this is actually the least important game remaining on the schedule. (Which is technically true.) If you’re gonna lose one, this is the one to lose. And all that stuff that fans tell themselves when they’re preparing themselves emotionally for an unpleasant experience.

So that’s the good news. 10-1 and a good humbling heading into the playoffs (It’s still November, right? High five!) is one hell of a nice fallback option.

The better news? Fuck the fallback option. The Saints won’t need it. They’re the better team. I don’t know how they’re gonna do it. But they’re gonna do it.

PS: Mad props to Berto for putting Santana’s Winning back on the charts. Hell yeah! Bout damn time! It had to have been at least two decades since that track had even crossed my mind. Which is a shame, because it kicked, and kicks, lots of ass. And not just because my first memory of that song was from back when Mid-South Rasslin’ was trying to capitalize on the newfangled MTV craze by making music videos for all their rising talent, and they went with Winning to hype their hottest new tag team, Al Perez and Wildcat Wendell Cooley.

Nope. Has nothing at all to do with that. No sir, nothing at all.

Which isn’t to say it wasn’t about a thousand times better than Dark Journey flailing about to Madonna’s Dress You Up.

It also was quite a bit better than this:

Not to mention this:

Yikes.