'05-'06 New Orleans' Saints: The Greatest Team To Ever Play The Game

On August 29^th, 2005, the most devastating natural disaster in American history occurred. Hurricane Katrina could not have hit New Orleans more directly and when it did it had all the power that the all too enthusiastic national news outlets predicted.

The aftermath was shocking.

Thousands of lives lost, billions in damages, and a population scared that they may never be able to return home.

For decades the citizens of Louisiana had supported the Saints through thick and thin. For a city that had never won a championship the people had always been optimistic that somehow, someway, the saints would pull through.

This is a city that had been struck by disaster before, Hurricane Betsy, and had lost their teams before. It appeared that both tragedies were about to coincide at the same time.

Then a miraculous thing happened. The Saints made a promise to return, and with them the people rallied.

Barely one year after the disaster, the Superdome was repaired and the Saints were slated to return. In a city so devastated, so down on their luck, there was a dire need for something, for anything to rally around.

A group of my friends decided we needed to be involved so we bought six tickets, vowing to enjoy every minute of it, as painful as we expected it to be. You have to remember the Saints were 3-13 the year before.

The Saints taking the field on September twenty fifth, was a moment that nobody from New Orleans will ever forget. The rush of emotion was unlike anything that anyone had ever experienced. The first ninety seconds of the game made every single person in that stadium forget, at least for a day, the pain that had surrounded them for the previous year.

They weren’t the most talented team and they didn’t win the Superbowl, but that didn’t matter to us.

We knew we were watching the greatest team to ever play the game.