Saints need a few breaks for winning season
I strongly believe in fate, fully embrace the concepts of karma and destiny and acknowledge the unsubstantiated impact that NFL gods can have on a given game.
How else would one explain the New Orleans Saints serendipitous Super Bowl XLIV season of 2009?
If ever a city was meant to party hearty with the Lombardi, it was New Orleans during Mardi Gras 2010!
The ball bounced favorably for the Saints time and time again in '09, from sea to shining sea, on Thursday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, morning, noon or night.
It didn't matter.
Calls went the Saints way, whether they came on the field or from the replay booth. After further review, FIRST DOWN SAINTS! After further review, TOUCHDOWN SAINTS! After further review, SAINTS WIN!
That thought flashed in my mind during Sunday's crushing overtime loss to Tennessee at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome when two Saints defensive backs simultaneously went up for a dying quail thrown by Titans rookie quarterback Marcus Mariota in the first quarter -- an INT if ever there was one.
Instead of one player coming down with the pick, Saints defensive backs Keenan Lewis and Jairus Byrd somehow deflected the ball into the hands of Tennessee tight end Delanie Walker, who converted their philanthropic faux pax into a 61-yard catch-and-run touchdown.
The Titans eventually took the game into OT, won the coin toss and drove 80 yards in nine plays for an improbable walkoff victory, 34-28.
And Saints quarterback Drew Brees, the man, the myth, the legend, never stepped on the field in the extra session.
On Sunday, the Saints return to the scene of a football crime committed in lucky Week 13 of the Super Bowl XLIV season against the Washington Redskins at FedEx Field in Landover, Md.
Saints wide receiver Robert Meachem staged a larcenous act in broad daylight not far from the nation's capitol, stealing the ball from unsuspecting Redskins' safety Kareem Moore and returning the theft 44-yards for a touchdown late in the second quarter.
Moore had made a diving interception only moments earlier, presumably preserving a 17-10 lead for the Redskins going into halftime. But as fate would have it, as karma and destiny collaborated to change the course of history, as the NFL gods intervened to turn disaster into good fortune, an INT suddenly became a tying touchdown for the Black and Gold.
New Orleans went on to register a 33-30 win in OT and remained unbeaten at 12-0.
And the rest is history.
The struggling Saints of 2015 could use some good, old fashioned luck of their own Sunday.
This story was originally published November 14, 2015 at 1:26 PM with the headline "Saints need a few breaks for winning season ."