{"id":5364,"date":"2010-01-27T01:02:17","date_gmt":"2010-01-27T08:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=5364"},"modified":"2010-01-27T01:14:55","modified_gmt":"2010-01-27T08:14:55","slug":"the-peterson-principle-12710","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=5364","title":{"rendered":"The Peterson Principle 1\/27\/10"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Drew Brees and the Saints are in the Super Bowl. Is the apocalypse upon us?<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0 Global warming? Terrorist attacks? Economic disaster? Those things pale in comparison to what happened Sunday. Now we really have something to worry about. Get your affairs in order. Make sure you spend quality time with your loved ones. The apocalypse is surely at hand. The end of the world as we know is around the corner.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 The New Orleans Saints are in the Super Bowl. Now there\u2019s a sentence I never thought I\u2019d write. At least not without my tongue firmly planted in my cheek. But it\u2019s true. Yeah, the New Orleans Saints! I know it\u2019s not funny. In fact it\u2019s kind of sick.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 The same New Orleans Saints that used to be called the Aints. The same Saints that once\u00a0had fans that came to games wearing brown paper bags over their heads. The same Saints that once pinned their hopes on a quarterback, John Fourcade, whose biggest success came when all the real players were on strike.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t supposed to happen this way. Brett Favre was supposed to be in the Super Bowl. That was the story. A 40 year old quarterback leading his team to the promised land- that was what everybody wanted. We wanted to see Favre and the Minnesota Vikings going head to head against Peyton Manning \u2013 the best quarterback in the game.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 But instead we\u2019re saddled with the New Orleans Saints? They used to play Super Bowls in New Orleans but we never expected\u00a0the team from there to play in one. New Orleans is known for Bourbon Street not football. The Saints were\u00a0something to laugh about. They\u00a0always provided good material for the local comics.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 It took the Saints 20 years before they\u00a0made a playoff appearance. 1987, the playoff year, was also the first time the Saints had a winning record since being established in 1967. They\u00a0once had a coach named Bum. I mean these guys were bad.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 The Saints had never won a playoff game before 2000. Most teams\u00a0run in cycles. The 49ers had their glory years but have been down recently. Dallas has been up and down Miami has had its day in the sun. But the Saints had only one cycle. It was always down.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 As a franchise they\u2019ve lost more than 100 games more than they have won. In 43 years they have managed to win 275 games. But they have lost 378. The Saints have had only nine winning seasons in 43 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0 The Saints haven\u2019t marched on anybody. Everyone has had their number. Mike Ditka, who won a Super Bowl title with the Bears in 1985, couldn\u2019t win there. In three years as the Saints head coach he went a combined 15-33 including a 3-13 record in 1996.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 Hank Stram won a Super Bowl with the Kansas City Chiefs in 1970. In two years as the Saints coach, \u201976 and \u201977, he went 7-21.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 1980 was the year that the fans started busting out the paper bags. The Saints lost their first 14 games before finally beating the Jets in week 15. Fans dubbed the team the Aints and showed up looking like the Unknown Comic.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 Tom Petty once sang that \u201cEven the losers get lucky some time\u201d but with New Orleans even luck seemed out of the question \u2013 until this season.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 They started winning and kept on winning. You kept expecting something to go wrong but it never did. Somebody would get hurt- maybe the quarterback Drew Brees- or a wide receiver. These were the Saints. A Super Bowl was not possible.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 You knew they would fall in the post season. But they ran over Arizona to set up\u00a0the showdown with the Vikings. Now they were done. And they appeared to be. But Minnesota turned the ball over five times including two by the great Favre. His interception at the end of regulation led to the Saints win.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 Destiny? Will the Saints actually win the Super Bowl? Against Peyton Manning? Of course not. Colts roll 35-10.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 That\u2019s my principle.<\/p>\n

Tim can be reached at tspeterson@yahoo.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Global warming? Terrorist attacks? Economic disaster? Those things pale in comparison to what happened Sunday. Now we really have something to worry about. Get your affairs in order. Make sure you spend quality time with your loved ones. The apocalypse is surely at hand. The end of the world as we know is around […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[509,1990,1993,1996,1992,1991,1995,1994],"class_list":["post-5364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-high-school-sports","tag-brett-favre","tag-drew-brees","tag-hank-stram","tag-john-fourcade","tag-mike-ditka","tag-peyton-manning","tag-tom-petty","tag-unknown-comic"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5364"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5368,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5364\/revisions\/5368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}