New Orleans Saints' Success: Don't Forget Paul Tagliabue

It's safe to say that Louisianans hold Saints QB Drew Brees and head coach Sean Payton in high regard. Since New Orleans' Super Bowl XLIV victory in February, their status has reached nearly god-like level.

"Breestains" praise "Breesus" and "Sean the Apostle" every Sunday of the NFL season.

Payton and Brees have cashed in on their popularity with best-selling books in the past month: Payton's Home Team: Coaching the Saints and New Orleans Back to Life and Brees' Coming Back Stronger: Unleashing the Hidden Power of Adversity.

Saints fans have every reason to celebrate what the pair has accomplished, both on the field and in the greater New Orleans community over the past four years.

However, there is one aspect of all the fan worship that I take exception to. That is giving Brees and Payton credit for bringing hope and keeping the Saints in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina flooded most of the city and heavily-damaged the Superdome in 2005.

The real thanks should go to former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue. It was he who committed the NFL to bringing the Saints back to New Orleans when team owner Tom Benson was eager to relocate to San Antonio, where he resides.

People now forget how close the Saints came to being another city's team. Even Benson is trying to rewrite history.

The July 12 ESPN The Magazine in which the Saints were named the best franchise in sports, Benson said:

"Publicly, everybody was talking about [the Saints leaving New Orleans]. But we—ourselves and our staff—wanted to come back. We just had to find a way. And that's what we did."

That's not truly true.

In 2005, when the Saints were playing home games in Baton Rouge and San Antonio, Benson fired former executive vice president Arnie Fielkow for promoting the Saints return to New Orleans. About a week later, Benson paid for a full-page newspaper ad, a letter to Saints fans, which did not guarantee the team's return to New Orleans.

The way back was through Tagliabue. He convinced the NFL to chip in the first $15 million of the $184 million to restore and improve the Superdome. The rest came from FEMA ($115 million) the state of Louisiana ($13 million) and selling bonds ($41 million).

Those renovations are the only reason Benson kept the Saints in New Orleans. They have also generated the revenue that has allowed the team to make the moves that led to their Super Bowl victory: hiring Payton, and signing Brees, Jonathan Vilma and Darren Sharper in free agency.

Without Tagliabue's commitment to New Orleans do you know who would have won Super Bowl XLIV? The San Antonio Saints!

Then New Orleanians would have felt like Clevelanders after the Baltimore Ravens won Super Bowl XXXV.

In what turned out to be his final year as commissioner, Tagliabue could just as easily done nothing about Benson's desire to relocate the Saints. Tagliabue could have slinked off into retirement and let his successor Roger Goodell handle the fallout of New Orleans without its beloved football team.

Instead, Tagliabue stepped up and fought for Saints fans. New Orleans' Super Bowl win is as much a legacy of Tagliabue as it is to Brees and Payton.

When the Saints open training camp on Friday, fans will continue to focus their admiration on "Breesus" and "Sean the Apostle." But they should also remember St. Paul Tagliabue, the real patron saint of the Saints.