About New Orleans Saints
New Orleans Saints came to live in 1966 and joined the league a year later, the franchise has not been very competitive in its first 20 years of existence but eventually things got better and in 2009 the Saints appeared in their only Super Bowl, also winning it making it the only 3rd team to appear in a lone Super Bowl and winning it.
The franchise’s name is an allusion to first November, All Saints Day as Catholicism is strongly linked to New Orleans. Team’s colours are Old Gold, Black and White. There are two official mascots representing the team, Gumbo a form of a Saint Bernard dog and Sir Saint a fella with a huge chin. Worth a look!
The Saints play their games in NFC South and their main foes are Falcons, Panthers and Buccaneers. Team’s head coach is Sean Payton, a quarterback who played professionally only a year and who spent his early portion of coaching mainly as quarterback coach with several teams. He joined the Saints in 2006 and it’s no wonder that during his tenure the team has been known for being offensively happy.
Having such coach made life easier for Drew Brees, a quarterback who joined the Saints the same year as Payton and who has since established quite a few records including 5 times passing leader in a single season, most 5000 yard passing season, fastest to reach 50000 yards passing in NFL history and many more including Super Bowl MVP, 9 times Pro Bowl, twice AP NFL Offensive Player of the Year. Yes, one can see a picture of a fantastic passer, but he is not doing it all by himself.
He has been supported by Marques Colston, a wide receiver who was drafted by the Saints in 2006 draft. Colston has a record for most receptions in a player’s first two seasons with 168 of them and now he is also playing a mentoring role for a promising receiver, Brandin Cooks who Saints drafted in 2014.
But there are also some impact players on the defensive side, namely Cameron Jordan, a defensive end drafted by the team in 2011 who earned himself a Pro Bowl honours and Jairus Byrd, a free safety who joined the team in 2014 to strengthen Saints’ secondary ranks. And there’s also a veteran presence on special units with Thomas Morstead who became the second highest paid punter in the league in 2012 and he responded in leading the league(and nearly setting a new record) in net punting yardage that earned him a trip to a Pro Bowl.
It is always exciting to watch the explosive offense driven by Brees and his well-placed passes and the Saints’ fans can always hope for a good playoff run.
