Everyone is going fetal
If you feel like your fate is sealed
Then just get down and curl on up
Just like a little helpless pup
Alright

New Orleans Saints: Souljackers

Know what’s great about this week’s game against the Titans? It won’t ruin your Sunday. Hey, we take what we can get.

Funny what a couple of weeks will do to your outlook on life. And I’ve got jury duty tomorrow. Oh yeah, I’m one big ball of fucking sunshine right about now.

Fortunately for me, I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Libertarian (the kind with a capital L) and I’m a staunch supporter of jury nullification, when the situation warrants. This, of course, is usually a "Get Out Of Jury Duty Free Card." The System doesn’t want any part of that shit.

Now before you go giving me 47 kinds of grief over that, let’s get one thing clear. It’s not just about "getting out of it." I’ve actually tried to get on juries before. I’m perfectly willing to do my duty as a citizen and serve on a jury.

But I also consider it my duty as a citizen to see to it that an unjust law is not enforced, when it’s within my ability to affect that. For me, it’s a package deal. If you can’t accept the latter, you’ll just have to excuse me from the former. Hey, you asked, your honor. And I’m under oath.

Oh, and remember when you asked if I’d swear to uphold the Constitution of the State of North Carolina? And I told you that it’s been a while since I’ve read it? And I requested a copy of it so that I could bone up on the details, just to be sure I could, in fact, uphold it? What’s the ETA on that document, sir?

Sometimes being an asshole is so much fun I can hardly stand it.

Hey, speaking of assholes, how about dem Saints? Oh come on, I don’t really mean that. They’re still my boys. It would be one thing if it were still Aaron Brooks and Jim Haslett and Kendyl Jacox and crew, and yeah, I’ll admit that I was just about to the end of my rope with those dudes.

But these guys will never be those guys. Ever. I’ve already seen enough to know that these guys deserve our support regardless of record.

But with that being said, they pretty clearly have their heads up their asses right about now. I just don’t know any other way to describe it. I still can’t buy into the notion that they’re suffering from a case of the big head. That just doesn’t at all fit with what we’ve grown to know about these guys, and especially our head coach. I don’t see lackadaisical effort out there.

I also can’t bring myself to buy into the argument that all of a sudden the Saints’ opponents are giving greater effort because of some kind of "bulls-eye" factor now that the Saints are (supposedly) good. Because the necessary implication there is that teams give less than their best effort against teams they’re "supposed to beat" until the supposedly weaker team "sneaks up on them" and by the time they realize "Oh shit, maybe we ought to, you know, try" it’s too late. It just smacks of a typical all-purpose, no-way-to-disprove-it rationalization for an outcome that doesn’t fit with preconceived conclusions about what the outcome "should have" been. Or, in other words, ESPN logic.

Could it really be that the Saints just aren’t nearly as talented as they looked last year, and that the stunning success was due to the tidal wave of post-Katrina emotion? Oh give me a fucking break. More ESPN logic. The team’s performance doesn’t fit what we knew beforehand that the performance was gonna be, so it must be something mystical, undefinable, non-quantifiable. The Saints must have willed themselves to the NFC Championship game for the sake of the region. They did it for the children!

Bullshit. That’s so insipid and formulaic, it could have spewed forth from the Powerbook of the laziest of Hollywood hacks.

"Emotion" doesn’t get receivers open. "Emotion" doesn’t block pass rushers. "Emotion" doesn’t draw up gameplans. There’s no denying that adrenaline plays a huge role in football on a short-term basis. I can buy that emotion was a huge factor on 9/25/2006. In the first quarter. After Gleason’s block and Deloatch’s recovery. Beyond that? The Saints won because they outplayed the Falcons.

The Saints won 10 games last year because they outplayed their opponents. And the 11th was because the stars aligned for a timely Reggie Bush punt return. There would have been a 12th had Coach Payton not pulled all his starters. "Emotion" (in the feel-good carrying-the-city-on-their-shoulders ESPN sense) was a significant factor for about 15 minutes last season.

So what’s the problem?

The problem is that the Saints have their heads up their asses. For reasons unfathomable. Hell, even Coach Payton is at a loss for a reasonable explanation. It could be that a reasonable explanation doesn’t exist. One thing is for sure, we fans sure as hell aren’t gonna figure it out.

All we can hope for is a little desperately-needed novacaine for the soul. A win Monday night would be a good start.

Meantime, take it any way you can get it. I’m looking forward to a healthy dose Saturday afternoon from The Real™ Best College Football Team In All The Land. You know, those dudes in Baton Rouge who are scoring 45 points per game while giving up 2.3 points per game. The dudes who are slowly crushing the souls of Brent Musberger and Kirk Herbstreit.