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Do the Saints have a prayer?
I am going to recklessly assume that the vast majority of our local readers who have an interest in sports are pulling for the Indianapolis Colts to win the Super Bowl tonight.
If you’ve been paying attention at all this year, you will know that this year’s MVP Peyton Manning (his 4th MVP) and the vaunted Indianapolis Colts Offense are a points scoring machine, and their under-rated Defense is ranked 8th overall. Manning is like a surgeon with a football, and in all likelihood he will become the NFL’s highest paid player after the Super Bowl- and rightly so.
This isn’t to take anything away from the New Orleans Saints who have a prolific Offense of their own. Really, they are very similar to the Colts in that their team is designed to score lots of points and hopefully play with a lead, so that their Defense can contain the pass. The Saints have a very real chance of beating the Colts tonight, and I’m not trying to take that away from them. I expect it to be a high scoring battle with the Colts squeaking out a 3-point victory at the end. I think the point spread is hovering around 5 right now, so I wouldn’t go betting the farm on the Colts beating the spread.
But I must admit, since I haven’t heard this mentioned anywhere else, probably out of politeness, that all I’ve heard from several fan sites and from media sound bites is how New Orleans deserves to win because they haven’t been to the Super Bowl before, and that they suffered so much when hurricane Katrina swept over their fine city back in 2005, killing almost 2,000 people and displacing over a million residents. Now if you want to argue the Saints deserve to win because they have played their butts off, or because they have the talent to pull it off, fine. I would agree.
I just find it a bit insulting that people believe there is some sort of advantage or privilege or recompense owed the Saints, and in extension the city of New Orleans, for suffering through a natural disaster that no body would wish on their worst enemy. It’s kind of like the survivor of a disaster thanking God for sparing them while so many others around them are not fortunate enough to survive the same disaster. So many people seem to believe there is an all-knowing bookie up in heaven waiting to even the odds based on previous events.
It’s about as upsetting as when you see a football player point to the sky after he scores a touchdown, so that millions can see how devout he is on national television. The idea that God is rooting for one side over the other is ludicrous, like the other team didn’t pray hard enough or something.
I might do a post on some of the many other religious attributes and practices of professional athletes and teams sometime, but not right now. I have an exciting Super Bowl to watch for the moment.
Suffice it to say, God is not playing favorites or keeping score. Although I have to admit, it certainly does seem at times like the Devil is a Jets fan. They went much farther than they should have this year, and that would also explain why my favorite team, the Miami Dolphins, never seems to go anywhere. 
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The Do the Saints have a prayer? by Jake Doelling, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
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10 comments for “Do the Saints have a prayer?”
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Jake,
I’m going to go a step further and recklessly assume that most (not all, most) of the readers of this blog are not watching the Superbowl.
Yeah, I bet you’re right. But I bet there are plenty of skeptics that do watch sports, especially the big games.
Wait… is there some kind of soccer game on tonight or something??
Good timing as usual Joel…
Maybe prayers do come true. The Colts managed to collapse. The Saints marched all over them. What a disappointing end to a disappointing season. Unless you’re a Saints fan of course.
Apparently it’s stylish to claim no interest in sports, so I must admit with some degree of shame that I do watch Colts games.
I have to admit I never felt so bad rooting for the Colts. Everyone outside Indiana wanted the Saints to win, and we all knew it would break their hearts in New Orleans not to win. Imagine the party! It’s probably still in full swing.
This is one game I don’t mind us losing. The Saints did a really good job of keeping Peyton Manning watching from the sidelines, which is really the only way to beat the Colts.
No need to feel ashamed of liking sports, littlejohn. I understand many skeptics see it as nothing more than testosterone-fueled idiocy, but I beg to differ.
There is as much strategy to football as there is in chess, if not more. At least in chess it’s just you vs. your opponent. A choreographed chess match of mind and body amongst 22 starters (not including special teams) is much more difficult to pull off, imo.
That’s not to take anything away from chess, which is a great personal challenge. Although personally I like the game of Go much more, and find it easy to learn and difficult to master, much like chess.
I realize there are plenty of athletes that don’t have it all together in the brains department, but there are plenty who take the mental game just as seriously as the physical. They’re typically the super-stars of the sport- with a few exceptions of serious raw talent.
But I would argue most people don’t have the complete package of brains and physical prowess, no matter what the profession.
Either way, it is nothing to be ashamed about watching grown men or women pushing their minds and bodies to the breaking point for fame and glory.
It’s also a great form of sublimation. It allows us spectators unable to play sports to live vicariously through watching others perform what many can only dream of. It can also be a great, positive outlet for aggression and help kids and people to grow emotionally and intellectually if done right.
Thanks, Jake. I also like porn. Can you help me feel better about that? Just asking.:-)
Yeah Jake where is the post on porn?
You’re on your own there buddy.
Organized sports just bore me, except for cricket which fascinates me because it just seems so impenetrable. Of course, that fascination doesn’t extend to actually watching cricket. Does anybody actually watch cricket?
This is all probably because I grew up in Cooperstown so my childhood was saturated with baseball. And I hate how baseball has overtaken Main Street in the past 25 years. It sort of resulted in great waves of ennui washing over me whenever someone starts talking about sports.
Also, I’ve never enjoyed competitive games, not even competitive computer games. I was much more into adventure games where it was all about the story, and exploration and figuring out puzzles.
With all that being said, let me engage in a little bit of boosterism for the home team, so to speak. If you ever have the opportunity, do visit Cooperstown. Even though all the wonderful old Main Street shops have been replaced with baseball and other tourist-oriented fare, it’s still a beautiful little town with a lot more to do there than just tour the Baseball Hall of Fame. Lake Otsego is just drop-dead gorgeous, there’s a lovely art museum, the 19th C. village recreation at The Farmer’s Museum and you can even see what was perhaps the greatest religious hoax (next to the whole god thing) ever.