The last time the Cowboys beat the Saints, the world still thought that J.R. had taken his own life by shooting himself in the face.

Perhaps by next fall, Tony Romo will wake up, find T.O. in the shower, and realize that this whole year has been a horrible dream. But in the meantime, the Saints are about to hit them so hard, it's gonna turn Romo's mom into Donna Reed for a year.

Dallas hasn't won a road game since week 9 at Philly. In fact, they've only won three road games all year, and the other two were at Tampa in week 1 and at Kansas City in week 5. They're 1-5 against teams who currently have winning records.

They're also off to a roaring start to this year's annual late-season collapse. They're 0-2 in December so far. And hell, for that matter, their last two games in November were a home win over Oakland and a 7-6 home win over Washington, in which the Native Americans held the Cowboys scoreless for the first 57 minutes of the game, and Washington's kicker missed two field goals.

(To be fair, the Saints know a little something about stealing a win from Washington thanks to Suisham's general incompetence.)

Oh sure, the Cowboys have the league's 3rd ranked offense (though only the 13th ranked scoring offense) and they're 6th in scoring defense, giving up 17.9 points per game. Miles Austin has emerged as a bonafide beast, and Tony Romo is statistically the second best quarterback the Saints will have faced this year. He's first if you go only by passer rating.

Fortunately for us, none of that means jack shit. Because it's December, and the Cowboys are on the road.

And that's really all I have to say about this game. Don't know what to tell ya. It's not that I'm not excited about the game, because I get excited about every Saints game. Dallas as an opponent just doesn't do a whole lot for me is all. The Saints are going to hand them their asses, and then the real fun begins….

[Door flies open]

Now I want to talk a little about this "Unknown Saints Fan" circle jerk that's been going on ever since the guy was on tee vee for three seconds during the Washington game.

And look, I know that a handful of moosedenied's friends are into it. And if you're one of those people, please try not to take what I'm about to say personally. If I already think highly of you, hopefully you know that I do, and hopefully you'll trust me when I say that I don't think any less of you for getting a kick out of this thing. As always, we can agree to disagree, and if you're having fun with it, then more power to ya. I guess.

But the whole thing is a complete embarrassment. It's a mind-numbingly shameful example of all the worst things about internet "culture", crass commercialism and mindless celebrity worship in 21st Century America.

Let's not delude ourselves about the hows and whys of how this whole thing started. It was grade-school mocking of a guy's haggard appearance. Nothing more, nothing less. Nobody would have given it a second thought if the guy had looked like… oh, let's say… Jon Stinchcomb. In the first few hours of this so-called "phenomenon" it was little more than people publicly mocking the guy's… let's just say "unconventional" appearance.

He was being described as homeless, a drunk, a bum. People were speculating that he must have scraped together every last dollar he had to be at that game. People were thinking he might be "a bit slow" if you dig. He was the kid who eats worms out on the playground at recess. He was a spectacle. An object of ridicule. Why? Because "dat dude sure duz look funny." Then the Photoshop jobs started. Message Board Carrot Tops started trotting out every played out pictorial internet meme this side of the O-Rly owl and applying this guy's face to it.

Of course, as is always the case with this kind of thing, eventually a handful of softer hearts start speaking up. "Leave Britney alone!!!" and such. And of course, the inevitable response is "No no no, you don't understand. We're laughing with him, see? We're not being assholes, we're marveling at this guy's obvious chutzpah. I'm a total fan of this guy for some reason!"

And of course, my favorite one of all… "It was all FOX's fault! Clearly FOX was trying to demean us all as Saints fans by holding this guy up as an example of how everybody else sees us noble Saints fans. The media did it! They're trying to humiliate us! But we sure are sticking it to those assholes, aren't we? They didn't expect us to latch onto this guy and see him for the HERO that he clearly is. Ha! In your face, FOX! That'll teach you to disrespeck™ us!"

At which point, the wind starts blowing the other way. Nobody likes to be thought of as an asshole, so everybody starts jumping on the "Yeah, I've been totally misunderstood too!" bandwagon. "This guy's great!" And nothing's changed, nobody still knows a damn thing about this guy except what his face looks like. But now, the mindless grade-school ridicule subsides, and is replaced by mindless emoting and sentimentality. The only constant is the one-upsmanship.

Now, the "humor" takes on an overwhelmingly "good hearted" tone. And for those for whom tugging at heartstrings trumps tickling the "funny" bone, the guy becomes some kind of "inspiration." Reflexively, people start stepping to the pulpit to testify about his being "the embodiment of what it means to be a Saints fan." He's no longer a homeless drunk guy, he's probably a grandpa. Hell, he probably SERVED OUR COUNTRY!!!! By golly, the guy probably has a Purple Heart!

But one thing is completely obvious from the three seconds this guy's face was on tee vee… clearly this guy is one hell of a die hard fuckin' Saints fan. No way in hell this guy just hopped on the bandwagon in week 10, and surely he doesn't have body parts in his basement. Clearly this guy is all kinds of noble. He's a goddamned HERO!

What we need to do is to make this guy famous. And then bask in his reflected glory. If we turn this guy into a celebrity, well, it'll be kinda like we're celebrities too! His fifteen minutes will totally be the next best thing to getting our own fifteen minutes!

Of course, not everyone's content with that. They've gotta get their own piece of the action. So they scurry to domain registrars and gobble up about 400 variations on funnylookingsaintsdude.com, Facebook and Myspace pages get hastily thrown together, Twitter accounts get established. There are tee shirts and coffee mugs and thongs and whatever the fuck else CafePress offers. Holy shit, there's a buck to be made here! And there's fame of my own to be had! Everybody's gonna want to interview the illustrious Founder of the hottest new destination on the internets. The Facebook account has like 1000 members in a day! That's gotta be some kind of record, don't you think? And you know who did it? Me!

It's downright disgusting.

It's Paris-Hilton-Grade fame for fame's sake. It's all a phony, manufactured "phenomenon" based on absolutely nothing.

Now I want to be perfectly clear on one thing. None of this is the guy's fault. Hell, all he did was go to a damn Saints game and get caught on tee vee for three seconds looking funny, for crying out loud. Dude didn't ask for any of this, he didn't ask to be turned into some kind of unwitting fucking "mascot." And for all I know, now that he's aware of all this, he might find the whole thing thrilling. More power to him if that's the case. I hope the guy parlays this thing for whatever he can get out of it, if that's what he wants to do.

But what he thinks of it doesn't make a damn bit of difference re: what I think of it. And what I think of it is that the people who "made this happen" with the web sites and the merchandise and the barrage of emails to media types, the people offering plane tickets and game tickets and hotel accommodations, are whores. Reprehensible, disgusting, parasitic whores.

As if message boards didn't already have me weeping for the future of society…