Bringing the Drama

Sunday morning I woke up with a lot of nervous energy. The Saints playing in the Super Bowl was finally going to happen later in the day. I couldn’t concentrate on anything. I watched some soccer, the SB pregame, and I played around on the internet. I had taken care of some grad school stuff on Saturday, so I wouldn’t have to worry about getting anything done Sunday morning. Things were moving so slowly, much like the last two weeks since Garrett Hartley’s kick split the uprights to beat the Vikings.

Finally, it was time to leave for my friend Melanie’s house. On the way there, I had a frightening thought the game started an hour earlier than I thought, and we’d miss the teams running onto the field. Thankfully this was not the case. We arrived with our High Life and appetites in plenty of time to see the team introductions, crisis averted. I honestly didn’t know that many people at the party other than the people I came with and the hosts. We all had one thing in common, we were all Who Dats. The setup was having the game projected outside onto a screen hung on the side of the house. Best setup to watch a Super Bowl ever! We all had camping chairs and blankets to keep warm.

Once the game started, it didn’t feel like watching a Super Bowl, it felt like watching a Saints game. That may not make sense, but it was the first time seeing MY team in the Super Bowl, so after the initial shock wore off of the teams running onto the field, and seeing the end zone painted black and gold, it was just like the other 18 games I had watched so far this year. The first half was so nerve-wracking. Peyton Manning seemed to be able to work the ball down the field, and he was making some PERFECT throws. A lot of people I read or saw talk about the game kept building up Manning as this unbeatable Superman of a QB. I knew he was good, but not that much better than Warner or Favre, who the Saints had beaten. The 4th and 1 at the goal line that the Saints did not convert made me really nervous, because the Colts could have come down and made it 13-3 or worse 17-3. Fortunately the defense was able to hold, and the Saints made up for the missed opportunity with another FG. I was encouraged at the half that it was 10-6 Colts, esp considering how sluggish the Saints offense looked, but how they had started to break out of their shell at the end of the first half. Still though, Manning didn’t seem to be too rattled.

After watching the two remaining members of The Who struggle through halftime, the 2nd half was set to begin. Everyone was back in their seats when the onside kick happened. Seriously, an onside kick in the Super Bowl! WHAT?!? The Saints TD that came after made me start thinking “this might actually happen, the Saints might do this.” The rest of the game until the famous INT was a blur. I remember Stover missing the FG (honestly, never thought he was going to make it and wondered why the Colts went for the kick). I was so happy for Jeremy Shockey to get a TD. I follow him on Twitter, and I watched his interview at Media Day. He gets a bum rap IMO, so I was glad he was able to make a big play in the Super Bowl. Lance Moore’s 2 point conversion was good when we watched the replay. I’m glad Sean Payton heard us screaming to challenge it. We also noticed Peyton Manning looking frustrated on the sideline, so maybe the Saints weren’t sacking him or getting INTs, but they were still getting to him in other ways. Advantage Saints!

So here we go, Saints leading by 7 and the Colts have the ball. I thought at worst, they tie the game and we go to OT. What I wanted though was to finally get a turnover and put the game away. I had been yelling for a turnover hoping it would actually happen….and then, it did. Pandemonium ensued when the play happened. I had not been sitting down since the TD to go ahead 24-17, and I started hollering, and I could not yell loud enough. I could not jump around enough. There was so much emotion that I could not express it all. People hugged, cried, and high fived. It was crazy. Fireworks went off in the distance. Two people from a party across the street ended up coming to our party. When the final whistle blew, more fireworks went off, a nearby church was ringing its bells, and the party across the street moved to our party, including their keg. I remember thinking “this moment is perfect.”

I got a phone call from my friend Jim, who I work with. He’s not from NOLA, yet he was excited for everything that had happened. I thought that was cool. I was yelling into the phone. The excitement was just incredible. I talked to my friend Jacob by phone and realized while talking to him, that the Saints, a team I love, a team my family loves, and a team my friends love, won a title. It’s the greatest sporting event ever, in the history of our lives. Nothing could ever top this. I told people it didn’t feel real, like in Back to the Future II, Marty sees that ad for “Cubs Win World Series”. That’s how it felt almost when we saw the headline on the news “Saints Win Super Bowl”.

I might have slept 3 hours on Monday night. I stayed up late watching every video I could, then woke up at 4 am and watched more video and Sportscenter over and over. I ventured out to get a paper at 6 am. It’s incredible. It actually happened. I’ll never forget Sunday night. I’ll never forget that feeling I had when Porter made the INT. The flood of emotion in that moment was incredible. The Saints are Super Bowl Champions! WHO DAT!

Back in May I typed about how Minnesota should sign Brett Favre. Now as I sit in a world where New Orleans Saints will host the NFC Championship game against the Vikings, I feel a tinge of regret. Little did I know last spring that Brett Favre would become a direct enemy of my Saints. That he and his team would be standing between the Saints and the Super Bowl.

I have been a Favre fan for as long as I can remember. I always wanted to see him do well in Green Bay. Maybe that admiration was helped by the Saints never playing the Packers in a really meaningful game, but I always thought it was cool that a guy from my general area of the country was one of the greatest QBs of all time.

This past Saturday night, I went to a Mardi Gras ball and had a great time. Someone at our table asked me who I wanted the Saints to play in the NFC title game. I told the lady I wanted Favre because of all the talk this season that has highlighted Favre’s play over Drew Brees. Part of me possibly didn’t want the Saints to play Dallas again, but mostly because I wanted the Saints to take down Brett Favre.

Now the game is upon us. The Saints won’t have to travel to a city up north and face a horribly insulting crowd in the snow. They get to play at home. They get to have their defense back and 91% full strength. They get to have the amazing Reggie Bush back at full strength. They also get Brett Favre, who will take away most of the media hype of this game.

As the game approaches, I am reminded of one of my favorite movie quotes from the film Rushmore for what I think the Saints should do: “Take dead aim on the rich boys, get them in the crosshairs, and take them down”. WHO DAT!

Last night’s Clemson game hurt. I haven’t been that upset after a game since last year’s Bama game. It just hurt to watch GT on the last drive, and it hurt for Clemson to fail on 4th and 1 with 30 seconds remaining. It hurt for CJ Spiller to have such an amazing game and be named MVP, but to lose in the end in excruciatingly painful fashion. Yuck. However, today somewhat made up for it and made me feel a little better.

Tonight was my project team’s final presentation. I caught up on watching class videos before the Saints game this morning, to make sure nothing was talked about in a lecture that would be useful for the presentation, and also to catch up because I was two lecture videos behind. Once the Saints game started, I took a break.

The Saints game didn’t exactly start off that well. The offense was being frustrated by the Redskins D, and the Saints D was not able to get much pressure on Jason Campbell. Weird stuff was happening, like this TD near the end of the first half. Seriously, when have you seen something like that happen? (linky link) A rough transcript of the play from me as the play happened, then as the play was reviewed and confirmed on the field: “oh come on, he didn’t intercept it! It hit the ground! Go Meachem! GO MEACHEM! TOUCHDOWN! No, he did intercept it! He wasn’t down! That is a touchdown!….YES! YES! WHO DAT!”

At halftime I went back to watching video, and had the audio of the game going on in the background. At the beginning of the 4th quarter I went back to watching the game. What happened at the end is still unexplainable to me. The Redskins were driving up 30-23, and got inside the 10 yard line. They went to kick the FG with 2 min to play, and I thought the Saints were dead to rights. The only way they could win now would be to block the FG. I thought this was how it was going to end, and they would have to hope the Vikings would lose tonight to maintain being #1 overall in the NFC. The dream was over. Then it happened. The Redskins missed a 23 yard FG! The Saints took over with no timeouts, and ended up scoring a TD with a little over a minute to play to tie the game at 30. WHAT? They got an INT, then had a chance to win with a 58 yard FG, but missed, and the game went to overtime. The Redskins won the toss, got the ball first, but then there was a fumble and the Saints recovered. They went down and kicked an 18 yard FG and won the game in overtime 33-30. I still cannot believe how it all ended.

Then I had to come down off the high of seeing such a miraculous finish and concentrate on my team’s final presentation. We had met as a team on Wednesday last week to do a rehearsal, and I tripped over my words. It was crazy and very embarrassing. This evening before the meeting, I wrote out what I would say for each slide I was supposed to talk, so I wouldn’t mess anything up. We all logged in for the meeting and the professor joined in shortly after. We did our thing and everything came out great. I was really happy with everything. I had asked our mentor a couple of weeks ago to be really picky with our presentation, because I wanted to make sure we’d be prepared for any questions our professor could think of. I think his questions prepared us for tonight, and we were able to answer our prof’s questions with flying colors. All that is left for me in that class is the final and then I’ll be done, and based on how well I did on the midterm, I feel good about that.

I woke up this morning and the morning talk radio guy was taking calls from people giving their predictions. I didn’t like the host doing that, because really, most people were just spouting off with homer type predictions. Some guy calls up and says “Saints 45, Patriots 14″. I laughed to myself and said “what an idiot”. I mean, I thought the Saints would win, but not by more than a couple of TDs at the most. I thought it’d be a close game, and in the back of my mind thought the Saints might lose.

Work today was rough. I kept thinking about the game. A couple of friends at work who were going to the game left early in the afternoon. I told them to yell loud enough for themselves and me. I on the other hand, was going to do exactly what I did the last MNF game, go to the gym, go to the store, and get home in time for kickoff. I’m a little superstitious about things if you don’t already know.

Sidebar: at the gym apparently now I can be looked at as a regular. This guy asked me in the locker room if I had been going to the gym for a while, and how did I like it. He was apparently shopping gyms. I told him I go to that particular gym because it’s conveniently located to where I used to carpool from, and I just kind of kept going. Then I found a way out of the conversation because I had a football game to watch.

The stop at the store nearly produced everything I went for but I did not find any mascarpone. I didn’t know if it’d be with the fancy cheeses (was going to take too long to look) or with stuff like cream cheese (I didn’t see it). Reason being I have found my next baking goal for this weekend, this Tiramisu cake. I might even make the Bobby Flay biscuits again to use up the buttermilk I bought to make the Coffee Cake.

I got home at 7:28 for a 7:30 kickoff. The game started off as expected, it was back and forth. On my way home I heard Reggie Bush and Jabari Greer were going to be inactive, which I was not excited about. I thought Reggie was going to play a huge part tonight, but I guess his knee is still bothering him. The Saints’ secondary has been banged up, and now we’re going to be relying on backups, including two guys who before two weeks ago were not even playing football. In this game though, those guys stepped up. My aunt’s favorite Saint was/is Mike McKenzie, who played for the Saints until last year. He was one of the guys just recently signed, in fact, signed last week. He made some HUGE plays including a game changing INT. Awesome. Then Drew Brees was just a surgeon out there, dissecting the Patriots at every turn. Did you see the ridiculously accurate throws? I mean, really, they were insane. I was pretty much in disbelief when it was 24-10 at halftime, and then when they answered the Patriots TD with one of their own to make it 31-17. Unbelievable.

Final score, Saints 38, Patriots 17. Maybe that dude who had called the radio station this morning knew something I didn’t. Or maybe he had more confidence than I did. Either way, the Saints are 11-0. WHO DAT!

I woke up this morning excited to watch the Clemson-south carolina game. Even though Clemson has looked great the past 6 games, I told someone last week, I keep waiting for the fall. I’ve been accustomed to some kind of bad game just when you think everything is going well. Last week they won the division, but this week was the rivalry game. I HATE south carolina. My freshman year they won at Clemson and I vividly remember standing on the hill watching the team jump up and down on the Tiger Paw. How dare they! Clemson doesn’t lose that often to south carolina, so to most people it’s not that big of a rivalry, but I know better.

Today I wasn’t that nervous about the game, but I wasn’t as confident as I was last week. CJ Spiller returned the opening kickoff for a TD, and it was great! However, all that joy faded quickly as I watched the offense sputter and the defense not capitalize on fumbles by south carolina. I didn’t give up hope until the onside kick when it was 27-17 ended up giving the ball to south carolina at the 6 or something. ARGH!

I tried explaining the rivalry last night. When south carolina wins, it’s like a punch in the gut. Sure, they don’t win that often, but it still sucks when they do. I guess in the big picture it shouldn’t be that big of a deal since Clemson’s playing in the ACC title game next week, but I was still bummed this afternoon. I went for a run and felt a little better. They still finished 8-4, all is not lost.

I immediately started looking ahead to the Saints/Pats game on MNF. They must have had 1000 promos for the game during the Clemson game today, one time with the wrong team logos. Since I’m on the Saints season ticket waiting list, I get emails from them every so often about the upcoming game. For the MNF game this week, the email talked about how they want fans to arrive as early as possible and be in their seats with plenty of time. To encourage this, they are opening a few of the parking lots at 6 am. SIX IN THE MORNING! I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to concentrate at work on Monday. It’s going to be like those commercials, I’ll have to deal with characters like BO Guy and KCOG, but I’ll keep telling myself “Don’t worry about all these guys. Tonight’s just for me!”

Today I went against karma and challenged fate. I went over to watch the Saints game at a friend’s house. I have watched every regular season game except the Giants game by myself for one reason or another. I was invited over after plans to hang out Friday fell through, and I made the fate challenging clear when the plans were reconfigured for today. Jacob agreed that we were flying in the face of superstition.

Yesterday I had gotten a text from his wife about today that I didn’t know I had until my phone had hit the floor. It had vibrated itself right off the counter in the kitchen. When I went to reply, I realized buttons were not working. When the damage was fully realized, the 3, 7, and 9 were out of commission. I had to make phone calls instead of texting. OMG! Then after my 2nd phone call, magically everything was back to normal. AMAZING PHONE LIVES ON!

So back to the game, I wore my Fujita jersey and brought over some left over High Life from Halloween. The camo cans are hard to pass up. We watched the game together and everything went fine. The Saints are 10-0 for the first time in their history. Things are looking good to watch games together later in the season. It’s a good thing the challenging of fate was when they were playing the 1-8 Bucs and not next week against the Patriots. Next week I’ll be watching alone, just like I watched the last MNF game.

Incidentally, the games I’ve worn my Fujita jersey for earlier in the season where I’d watch by myself, I felt like I was in an NFL commercial. Who wears a jersey at their house when they’re watching a game by themselves? Apparently me.

So last year when Clemson hired Dabo Swinney as the football head coach, I was happy with the decision. I was not completely 100% behind it, but more excited for the possibility of it being a good hire. I was totally behind Dabo, but I had some reservations. The beginning of this year when the team started 2-3, I started questioning what was going on. The offense looked bad, and the coaching staff was completely outmatched against Georgia Tech. I had seen them play in person against TCU and thought they had some grit to them, but they lost. After the loss to Maryland, I really was wondering what was going on. I know Dabo talks a good game, but it’s another thing to see it on the field. Still, the results were not very inspiring. Then they strung together a few wins, and won impressively over BC and Wake. The win against Miami was huge IMO. The game against FSU might have started off shaky, but they finished strong.

All this week the talk has been about finishing strong. The team would lock up the division with a BC loss OR a Clemson win, but Dabo was focused on the Clemson win. “We want to do what champions do and that’s take care of business.” I loved hearing that. My friend Scott called me this morning and asked me how I felt about the game today. I told him there was no way they’d lose. The way they have played the past few weeks has shown me that they’re completely capable of ‘taking care of business’.

I was able to watch the game today and they were a little shaky when UVa was running a lot of trick plays. I guess it’ll be good to play against that kind of stuff in preparation for the rematch with GT. Spiller didn’t have HUGE game like I was hoping, but I still think he deserves a chance to go to NYC for the Heisman ceremony. Clemson ended up winning rather easily, which is the most important thing. ‘Rather easily’ in that it wasn’t really in doubt, but there was some doubt and it could have gone the other way. The rematch with GT should be a good game, hopefully there won’t be any horrible coaching breakdowns like back in September.

So apparently while everyone was worried about the Saints and getting ready for Thanksgiving, there was a hurricane in the Gulf. Big deal right, it’s NOVEMBER! Just last week on the radio in the morning they were talking about how hurricane season was going to be able to be called early because there were no storms. Oops.

Ida I guess is technically still out in the Gulf as I write this, and will make landfall sometime in the next few hours. The way it came to shore has meant light rain and some wind, but nothing like when tropical storms have come directly over my house, or insane like Katrina. I was reading what I could on the incoming storm today and saw this official briefing from the city of Slidell.

The city spokeswoman’s quotes made me laugh. She actually said ‘hunker down’. Everyone says hunker down for some reason. My dad, my uncle, the weather guys, whenever there is a hurricane the instructions are ‘hunker down and be careful’. I definitely hunkered down once I got home from the gym and the store.

Speaking of those things, the gym usually is the most crowded on Monday nights. I guess everyone thinks “yeah, this week’s going to be different! I’m going to work out everyday this week starting tonight!” Tonight though the gym was pretty empty, most people must have been hunkered down! I’ve been going long enough that I recognize people, and the dude who drags his wife along was there, with the wife in tow. I felt bad for her. She was having to watch him and his workout buddies do something on the bench press while she did nothing. It’s always the same with them, and I don’t know whether or not he makes her go or she wants to spend time with him that she’ll do whatever. It just looks awkward.

As for my hunkering down tonight, I was able to set up Maggie II and also watch MNF. I won one of my fantasy football games thanks to a big night by a Denver WR. Unfortunately my work league game was a lost cause before tonight’s game even started. Did I mention I have a living iPod again? Awesome.

I’ve played fantasy football and basketball with a guy I knew from Jr High and High School since probably 1999. In our football league, I am the two time defending champ, this year going for the three peat. Yesterday before the Saints/Falcons game, I was down 60 points in my game (37-97) to this guy who was tied with me for first place in our division. Sixty points is a lot, even when you have 4 ‘players’ going for you (Colston, Shockey, Turner, Saints D). In my work league, I was also far behind (76-110), but I only had one guy playing and he was going to have to score 4 TDs and run for 150 yards for me to have a chance. Considering it was Pierre Thomas and the Saints use a RB by committee philosophy, that kind of performance was going to be near impossible. The 60 point deficit was at least possible, but not very likely.

Did I mention it was SAINTS VERSUS FALCONS ON MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL? I rushed home and was able to hit the gym, stop by the store, and make it home with 10 minutes to spare before kickoff. I was stoked. I even drank beer (only one) on a weeknight, which I haven’t done in a long time. I thought the Saints could win by two TDs rather easily, especially since the Falcons were coming off a beat down from the Cowboys. The game started off and the Falcons looked good. Their defense was tougher than I thought, because hadn’t they just given up 300+ to Tony Romo last week? The Saints battled back, and right before halftime got two quick scores, including a INT returned for a TD by the defense. They were up two TDs at the half, and miraculously I had gone from down 37 to 97 to down 79-97 in the fantasy game.

I was never really worried about the real game, ever. Even when the Falcons jumped out to the early lead, or when they made the Saints offense look bad. I had just watched the Saints come back from down 21 last week, and we were at home, surely they would find a way to win. This season’s team just feels different. The second half started and it was tight. ATL was driving down only 4 and I thought for sure they would get a score. Then, the Saints intercepted and killed the drive. They drove down for a TD to go up 11 late in the 4th quarter. With each fantastic catch on that drive by Shockey and Colston, I crept closer and closer to the fantasy win too. The Saints seemed to have the game locked up, but could I also pull out this fantasy football miracle?

The ensuing Falcons’ possession, I was down 94-97. Things worth 2 points are sacks, fumbles, or interceptions. Two sacks and I win! Then the Saints pass rush knocked the ball out of Matt Ryan’s hands and they recovered the fumble. That counted for a sack AND a fumble, four points, I went ahead 98-97! The refs then reviewed it and called it an incomplete pass. I hate that rule. It went back to 94-97 and the Falcons eventually kicked a FG which then made it 93-97 because the defense gave up more points. ARGH!

The onside kick comes, and all the Saints have to do is recover it and then kneel down. Then the backup TE kind of muffs the FALLING ON THE BALL thing and the Falcons recover. Down eight points with less than a minute left, this thing is over, even with the Falcons having the ball. The fantasy game was not over though! Two sacks ties it. The Saints then got a sack, it was 95-97! ONE sack, ONE interception, just ONE thing would tie the game. I was hollering at the television for something to happen! On 2nd down from midfield with 11 seconds left, Matt Ryan heaves it downfield and the Saints intercepted with 3 seconds left in the game. The fantasy game was tied 97-97! The Saints were officially SEVEN AND O! Life was good, and it was 1 am before I actually went to sleep.

Sunday morning I woke up and went to early church. I hadn’t been to early church in a long time, but this Sunday happened to also be the week my mom was doing the scripture reading. The sermon was once again not really on the mark for me, but I enjoyed being up early on a Sunday seeing friends and family at church. After church I went to the store to pick up some things, and on my way home thought I would stop at the Quiznos near my house. I hadn’t been in a while and I wanted to stop off and have someone make me lunch. About 11 I pulled into the parking lot and parked the car. I started walking up and noticed a ‘For Lease’ sign in the window. QUIZNOS WAS CLOSED! The tragedy comes from the fact that now the only food places on my side of the interstate are Krystal and Sonic. Of course, there’s tons of stuff across the interstate but when there’s a lot of traffic, it’s not the most convenient trip to make. I went home and made myself a PB&J.

My grad school class project team has been meeting each Sunday night. I am the CEO of our fake company, and Sunday I was also up in the rotation for typing out the agenda and leading the meeting. Since the Saints game was not until 3, I set about to get that night’s meeting organized. I edited some of the final presentation slides and typed the email out to the team. The plan was for everyone to edit the presentation and send out their edits during the week, but I guess with the test we had last week no one really had time.

I had about 2 hours before the Saints game, so I went out to try to cut my grass. My lawnmower had to have some maintenance done to it because I had overfilled the oil. I had to replace the spark plug and the air filter, which wasn’t a big deal. With all the stuff that’s been going on with going out of town and working late and studying for tests, I had not been able to do anything with my yard. After a struggle to add oil and figuring out what the dipstick was actually saying, I had the oil done during the Saints game. I would go out to the garage during commercials and check on the oil, and add some. At halftime, I went out and tried to cut part of my backyard. The game had been going terrible for the Saints, but I had not lost all hope yet. I was outside cutting the grass and emptying the grass catcher when I heard loud cheering in my neighborhood. I remembered meeting Marlon and him telling me the Saints party was at his house Sunday and realized they were cheering, so obviously the Saints had done something really great. (it ended up being Darren Sharper’s INT return for a TD at the beginning of the 2nd half). The cool thing was it wasn’t just that crowd that I heard, it was multiple people from multiple houses in my neighborhood. I thought that was pretty cool, the community feel. That was one of the things I liked so much about the 2006 season.

I finished up with the lawnmower and went inside to watch the rest of the game. I had my team project meeting at 6 pm, and the game was still going on. I was going to have to multitask. The meeting started and I was steering us very well. I was watching the game on TV that was behind my laptop, so I didn’t miss much. I saw Reggie’s leap for a TD and everything. When Carney missed the XP, I remember back when he missed the XP after the most incredible last second play in Saints history. When they went ahead 40-34 I thought “it’s only 6 points! They need more!” Then I saw Tracy Porter get the INT and run it back for a TD and they locked the game away.

During all of this, I was leading this team project meeting. We’re assigned a mentor who ties in to all of our meetings. At the beginning of the meeting, he asked me if I was watching the Saints game. I told him I was and that if I randomly yelled out it had to do with the game not the meeting. At one point while I was typing something and said “NICE!” when the Saints scored, then had to cover saying “I said ‘Nice’ when referring to Drew Brees throwing another TD, not really this slide” which was about marketing or something. Once the game ended it was easier to focus on the meeting, and we actually finished half an hour early. The meeting ran really well, and I got props from the mentor guy. After such a crappy week last week (except for IMGL), the weekend was awesome. I need to find an SI with the new Saints cover!