If only the Saints were a college football team, so the sportswriters could just hand them the trophy.

Actually, that’s a bad idea. They’d just hand the trophy to the Patriots, even if it’s the Saints vs. the Colts or Ravens in Glendale. So forget that. Let’s start over…

The national media can’t win with Saints fans. Never could, never will. I imagine it’s the same for any local hardcore fanbase, with the possible exceptions of Boston and Indianapolis. But Saints fans’ disdain for the national media runs extra deep. And extra stupid.

Last year, with the Saints coming off a 3-13 season, with a rookie head coach, a new QB with a bum shoulder, a completely new offensive line, a RB duo consisting of a smallish rookie and a fading vet coming off of a serious knee injury, and a defense that had been getting progressively worse for the last few years, Saints fans nonetheless saw fit to fly into a fit of rage every time someone in the national media dared to predict another season of non-contention for the Saints. They wailed and gnashed teeth at the lack of (all together now) RESPECT!!!!!

Then a funny thing happened. The Saints started winning. They started playing some damn fine football. They became the feel-good story of the NFL, and the media began to take notice.

And then an absolutely hilarious thing happened: Saints fans reacted with “We don’t want you on the bandwagon now!”

Funny how that works. It seems that in order to remain in the good graces of Saints fans, you have to call the Saints good when there’s little to no reason to think that they are. And if you don’t, then you’re not allowed to call them good when they actually are. Wait, that’s not quite right. You’re supposed to call them good, in fact you damn well better, you’re just not allowed to act like you’re enjoying it. And you’re supposed to remind everyone ad infinitum of how wrong and evil you were to have not known it all along. To have denied the Saints their as-yet-unearned RESPECT!!!!!

Fans are the first to point out that media types don’t have a crystal ball. They’re all too eager to point out all the times when a media prediction is wrong, and to insist that media predictions are for entertainment purposes only and not to be taken seriously. But then they also hold a grudge against any media type who doesn’t use their aforementioned nonexistant crystal ball to blow sunshine up their asses at the start of the season.

It’s no wonder sportswriters hate fans. I hate us, and I am one of us.

So what now that the worm has turned? 

The Saints seem to be the consensus favorites in the NFC going into the fall of 2007, and why shouldn’t they be? Nothing, and I mean nothing, about last year looked like a fluke. The Saints return everyone from last year’s roster that they cared to have return. They have made on-paper upgrades at several areas of weakness from last year, including cornerback, safety, middle linebacker, defensive tackle, wide receiver and kicker. Everyone else will have had a year under Sean Payton’s system, including Payton himself. Drew Brees and Dulymus will both be a year removed from serious injury. At the end of last year, Reggie Bush looked like he was about to absolutely blow up. What’s not to like?

All indications are that it’s going to be quite a year for RESPECT(!!!!)-starved Saints fans. The best part is that, while Katrina will never be forgotten, she should take a backseat this year, and the focus of the positive coverage will be where it belongs: on the actual football team and their on-field competence. Whereas last year there was an unbelievably annoying tendency for media types to attribute far too much of the Saints’ competence to the EMOTION factor, even late into the season and through the playoffs, you would expect that this year the focus will be on the fact that this is a damn good, ass-kicking football team.

The only question left, and it’s an important one, is “NOW what do we bitch about?”

Oh, I’m sure we’ll come up with something. I’m already sick and damned tired of the national media’s ball-licking of the “new and improved” Patriots. Let’s go with that.