2005-09-12 10:47 ☼ post
Sports Illustrated’s Peter King has a great open letter to Saints owner Tom Benson in this week’s Monday Morning Quarterback: Saints belong in New Orleans.
These people need the Saints. This region needs the Saints, now more than any other time in the 38-year history of the franchise. And the future of this team — and I would say even this incredibly needy region — is in your hands as much as any single person in the United States right now. You want to know what the displaced people in Houston and Dallas and all over America want to hear right now? They want to hear you make a clear, unmistakable declaration that the Saints will stay in New Orleans, no matter what infrastructure hurdles stand in the way over the next few years and no matter how incredibly lucrative it would be for you to move the team. They want to hear you say: “There’s no way on God’s green earth we’re moving this franchise. We will be a part of any reconstruction effort the city of New Orleans plans, and we’ll get through this painful chapter in our lives together. We’ll do it in New Orleans, nowhere else.”
Personally, I couldn’t agree more with Peter’s sentiments and I hope Tom Benson takes his words to heart. As yesterday’s win over Carolina demonstrated the Saints are rapidly becoming America’s team of the moment and I think there’s a lot more goodwill and fans to be gained by doing the right thing and staying put in New Orleans.
Besides the open letter Peter has a ton of interesting tidbits in this weeks MMQB as usual. The one I especially enjoyed was his review of the Burger King commercial that I mentioned yesterday:
The funniest commercial in recent NFL history is the Burger King spot with the Burger King guy intercepting Drew Bledsoe, taking it to the house and doing the cocky jig in the end zone. Whoever thought of that one deserves a little extra dough in the paycheck this week.