Game 5: A Bush Among Thorns

It’s 12:10 am on a Tuesday morning.  I come to you today painfully sober and devastatingly aware of what just happened over the course of nearly four emotionally charged hours of Saints football.  It is a game that began with me doing a cheerleader high kick in my living room (that I haven’t accomplished since 9th grade) after the Saints scored an easy 7 on their opening drive.  Turns out, I’d be the only “old fogey” to come through in the kicking clutch for the Saints tonight.  We’ll get to Gra-mendment #1, which calls for the immediate dismissal of Martin Gramatica, in a moment.  First…I want to ask one simple question of our offense: what the hell happened to you after the first quarter? 

You see it would be easy to lay this game at the feet of “Gramati-can’t”…but the truth of the matter is, he didn’t work alone to get us in a 20-10 hole against a team with less than 50 yards of offense.  He had some help in the form of disastrous miscues.  Sure his blocked field goal essentially sent 10 points in the direction of the other team.  But what about the turnovers, the countless offensive penalties, and the dropped balls? Oh no my friends, “Fartin” didn’t work alone to stink up the place.

On a night when we all held our breath every time Adrian Peterson touched the ball, no one suspected it would be our own offense ultimately giving us the shakes.  No matter what the stats say, we couldn’t produce squat that mattered after the first quarter and every opportunity that seemed to put us within reach of the end zone, we squandered by effectively pulling out a 9mm and shooting off our toes one by one before handing our blood soaked foot over to a rabid dog to finish the job.  Oh yes…it was a slow and painful kind of misery.

The one glimmer of hope, a frustrated Reggie Bush with an insatiable hunger for redemption.  What I can’t allow is for the disappointment of this loss to overshadow his amazing accomplishment.  Two punt returns for a touchdown is enough to make me not only expect but demand that Kim K. hook him up with an unlimited order of the “Lewinsky Special” tonight.  You wanted a phenom?  There’s your phenom assholes!  He showed true heart and kept us in this game when things looked their bleakest and when I considered breaking my Monday sobriety vow to reach for the nearest bottle of anything on my bar (Knife-set included.)  Alas, just as it didn’t take one man to destroy us (Martin) it wouldn’t take one man alone to rescue us.     

Our defense, which had done a superb job of containing Adrian Peterson and keeping the Vikings from doing anything significant for much of the night, buckled at exactly the wrong time.  In the fourth quarter, we had them on 3rd and 16, with the lead and all the momentum on our side, and we gave up the touchdown on a deep pass to Bernard Berrian.  It was forgivable though highly unappreciated.  What can’t be overlooked or downplayed is the pass interference on Kevin Kaesviharn on the Vikings final drive. I mean what kind of ignorance inspires one to wrap up the receiver before locating the ball?  Curse words alone can’t describe my emotions after witnessing that utter collapse.  Perhaps this picture can provide some insight…

I’m so frustrated right now.  I’m frustrated not only over the fact that we’ve been losing games but by the way we’ve been losing them.  We could feasibly be undefeated right now.  Think about it…we’re just 11 points away from being undefeated.  We’re two missed Martin Crap-matica field goals away from being 4-1.  We have one of the most high powered, albeit injured, offenses in the league…and yet tonight, we let the Vikings take control, take advantage of our mistakes, and get us off of our game.  This didn’t come down to a missed face mask penalty or even that b.s. “down by contact” ruling on the Adrian Peterson fumble.  This was about an offense that didn’t look focused and seemed too unhinged to overcome its mistakes. 

While I sit here contemplating a sick call tomorrow due to my inevitable fatigue and the sick feeling in the pit of my gut… I won’t do it.  Much like the Saints, I will pick myself up, dust myself off and regroup. I’ll let visions of Reggie’s heroic punt returns dance in my head.  I’ll recognize that as bad as I feel right now, Reggie Bush feels worse.  He’s the one wondering how to casually bring up “can I be traded” in the next team meeting.

Before I lay my head to rest, I will make one final point.  By noon tomorrow, I expect to get the “Breaking News” email that Gra-mendment #1 has been overwhelmingly approved.  We must kick the kicker to the curb before its too late.  Hell, we can make this like a reality show and give Sean Payton some lame diss line like “I’m sorry Martin…but you’ve been punted.”  I don’t care how we do it…so long as we do it…and NOW!! We can’t afford another ‘almost-win.’  We’re last in a division that we should and could be leading.  The gimpy groin stops here! 

For those of you who still need to vent, call into the Chicks Talking Trash on Blog Radio tonight at 6:30pm EST.  Here’s the call in number: [phone].  Cuss words welcomed and appreciated.