Team History: Saints have early struggles but win Super Bowl under Payton and Brees

Team History: Saints have early struggles but win Super Bowl under Payton and Brees

The Saints have been overcoming adversity since even before the city of New Orleans was awarded an NFL franchise. Although the AFL and NFL ended their status as competing leagues with a merger announcement on June 8, 1966, there was plenty of red tapes to break through for the agreement to be finalized. 

Foremost to both parties was getting the 89th U. S. Congress to pass a law stating that the merger did not violate antitrust laws concerning monopolies. In order to do this, NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle spoke to the Subcommittee on Antitrust. He promised that no existing team from either league would relocate as a result of the merger and also stood by the original agreement to expand to 26 teams by 1969 and 28 by 1970 or soon after. 

Two Louisiana Democrats, Senator Russell Long and Representative Hale Boggs pushed for the new law, and Rozelle granted a team to New Orleans on November 1, 1966, one month after the law was signed into effect by President Lyndon Johnson. 

A month after New Orleans was awarded a franchise, John W. Mecom Jr. paid $8.5 to become the majority shareholder. Mecom worked for the company his father started and named after himself. The John W. Mecom Company specialized in real estate, as well as taking abandoned oil wells and making them profitable again. 

The date of Rozelle’s decision played a part in the team’s name. Since New Orleans had a large Catholic population and November 1 is All Saints Day, the team was given the name Saints two months after the franchise was awarded.

Former Rams receiver and Packers and Falcons assistant Tom Fears was named the team’s first head coach. The Saints went 5-1 in their first preseason in 1967, then scored on their first-ever play. John Gilliam took the opening kickoff back 94 yards, but the Rams won, 27-13. New Orleans lost its first seven games and ended its inaugural season with a 3-11 record, which tied for the most wins by an NFL expansion team. 

The Saints did not improve very much in the first few years. Fears were given control over player personnel before the 1970 season, but was fired midway the year after going 1-5-1.

Instability was the norm for the early Saints. The team changed divisions three times in the first four seasons, but they finally settled into the NFC West, where they would stay and face the Falcons, Rams, and 49ers from 1970 through 2001 (Carolina started in 1995). 

Fears was replaced by J. D. Roberts, a former Marine Corps lieutenant who was coaching the Richmond Roadrunners in the Continental Football League. In Roberts’ first game, the Saints trailed the Lions, 17-16, in the closing moments. Tom Dempsey, who was born without toes on his right foot or fingers on his right hand, kicked a 63-yard field goal with two seconds left to give New Orleans the victory. The kick was an NFL record for 43 years until Denver’s Matt Prater booted a 64-yarder in 2013. 

Dempsey’s kick was the last winning moment in New Orleans that season, as the team finished 2-11-1. As a result, the Saints were able to draft Mississippi quarterback Archie Manning with the second pick. Although he was a staple in the Crescent City for the next decade, Manning could not lead his club to a winning record. The best the Saints could do was an 8-8 mark in 1979 under former 49ers coach Dick Nolan. 

Saints fans had optimism heading into the following season, but while Manning, running back Chuck Muncie and receiver Wes Chandler led a decent offense, the defense was the worst in the NFL. Nolan was fired during the year and it got so bad that the fans began calling the team the “Ain'ts” and came to games wearing paper bags over their heads. 

In 1981, former Oilers coach Oail Andrew “Bum” Phillips took over as head coach. The Saints passed on linebacker Lawrence Taylor with the first pick in the Draft and took Heisman Trophy-winning running back George Rogers instead. 

New Orleans matched its best record with an 8-8 mark in 1983, leading to the team’s “Who Dat?” chant gaining popularity among fans, but the streak of non-playoff seasons continued to grow. Mecom decided to sell the Saints and fans began to speculate that a new owner would move the team, possibly to Jacksonville. However, Tom Benson, a New Orleans native who owned several auto dealerships and financial institutions, bought the franchise for $64 million in 1985. Benson hired Jim Mora as head coach the following year. Mora was a former Seahawks defensive line coach and led the Baltimore Stars before the United States Football League folded. 

The 1987 season was interrupted by a player strike, but the replacements went 2-1. After a loss to the 49ers put New Orleans at 3-3, the team didn’t lose the rest of the way. The offense was led by quarterback Bobby Hebert, running backs Rueben Mayes and Dalton Hilliard and receiver Eric Martin. While Taylor and the Giants’ “Big Blue Wrecking Crew” linebackers got a lot of press, the New Orleans “Dome Patrol” quartet of Rickey Jackson, Sam Mills, Pat Swilling and Vaughan Johnson was quite formidable as well. 

Finally, in their 21st season, the Saints reached the postseason. The team’s 12-3 mark was not enough to get by Joe Montana and the 49ers for the NFC West title, so New Orleans faced Minnesota in the Wild Card round. A Hebert to Martin pass gave the Saints an early lead, but the Vikings dominated the rest of the way, winning 44-10. 

New Orleans missed the playoffs despite a 9-5 record in 1988 and the Saints fell in the first round in each of the next three years, including 1991, when they won their first division title, and 1992, when they went 12-4. The team failed to have a winning record the next three years, and Mora was fired during the 1996 season. 

Former Bears boss Mike Ditka took over the following year. The team used seven starters at quarterback in three seasons, but his most publicized move was the trade for Ricky Williams. The Saints traded all six of their 1999 draft picks, plus first- and third-rounders in 2000 to get the Texas running back. The strange pairing was featured on the cover of ESPN the Magazine (complete with Williams wearing a bridal dress and Ditka in a tuxedo), but the team floundered to a 3-13 record on the field and Benson fired the coach. 

The next coach was former Steelers defensive coordinator Jim Haslett. Behind Williams, quarterback Aaron Brooks, wide receiver Joe Horn and Pro Bowlers Joe Johnson, La’Roi Glover, Mark Field, and Keith Mitchell on defense, the Saints went 10-6 and won their second division title in 2000. 

In the Wild Card game, Brooks threw four touchdown passes, including three to Willie Jackson, but the Saints had to withstand a wild comeback by Kurt Warner and the Rams before finally winning, 31-28, for the franchise’s first playoff victory. New Orleans fell to Minnesota the following week. 

New Orleans failed to finish better than 9-7 the next five years. The 2005 season was ruined by Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the area and forced the Saints out of the city. The team split between Baton Rouge and San Antonio, with its first “home” game against the Giants being played in New Jersey. Haslett was fired after a 3-13 record. 

In 2006, the Saints hired Sean Payton, a former assistant under Bill Parcells in Dallas. They also signed former Chargers quarterback Drew Brees to a six-year, $60 million deal despite him suffering an injury to his throwing shoulder the previous season. In the Draft, the Texans wanted to draft Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush with the first pick, but the sides could not come to a contract agreement. They drafted defensive end, Mario Williams, instead and the Saints snapped up with the USC running back. New Orleans also found a gem in their seventh-round pick, wide receiver Marques Colston. 

Those additions, plus 1,000-yard back Deuce McAllister and defensive ends Charles Grant and Will Smith propelled the Saints back to the playoffs with a 10-6 record. McAllister had 143 yards and a touchdown rushing and another score receiving in a 27-24 win over the Eagles in the Division round, but the Saints fell to the Bears, 39-14, in their first NFC Championship Game. 

New Orleans missed the postseason the next two years before setting a franchise record with an NFC-best 13-3 mark in 2009. Brees threw for 4,388 yards and 34 touchdowns, Colston had more than 1,000 yards receiving and the team had three solid running backs in Bush, Pierre Thomas, and Mike Bell. Linebacker Jonathan Vilma and safeties Roman Harper and Darren Sharper made the Pro Bowl. 

The Saints dominated the Cardinals, 45-14, in the Division round, then edged the Vikings in the NFC Championship Game. Pierre Thomas had touchdowns running and receiving, and Garrett Hartley kicked a 40-yard field goal in overtime for a 31-28 victory. 

After 43 years, New Orleans finally got into the “Big Game.” Brees threw for 288 yards and two touchdowns to outplay Peyton Manning, and Tracy Porter’s 74-yard interception return with 3:12 left sealed the Saints’ 34-17 win over the Colts in Super Bowl XLIV. 

New Orleans returned to the playoffs each of the next two years, but failed to get past the Division round. Brees threw for a then-record 5,476 yards and 46 touchdowns in 2011. However, one of the franchise’s lowest points was about to become public knowledge. Defensive coordinator Gregg Williams organized a cash payout for violent hits on opposing players that were later known as “Bountygate.” 

The scandal cost the Saints on and off the field. The team was fined $500,000 and lost two second-round picks. Williams (by then with the Rams) was suspended indefinitely. Payton and Vilma were forced to sit out the entire 2012 season. General manager Mickey Loomis and defensive end Anthony Hargrove were suspended eight games, defensive end Will Smith received a four-game ban and linebacker Scott Fujita (who had signed with the Browns) had to sit for three games.

Payton came back and New Orleans went 11-5 and returned to the playoffs in 2013. The Saints edged the Eagles, 26-24, on Shayne Graham’s 32-yard field goal as time expired in the Wild Card game, but they fell to eventual champion Seattle the following week. 

After three straight 7-9 seasons, Saints got back to the postseason in 2017, but fell to the “Miracle in Minneapolis” pass from Case Keenum to Stefon Diggs in the Division game. 

In 2018, the team faced the loss of its owner, as Benson died in March at age 90. He was going to leave the team to his adopted daughter, Renee, and her two children, but in 2014, he changed his estate so his wife, Gayle, could control the Saints and the NBA’s Pelicans. 

On the field, New Orleans went a conference-best 13-3 and won its seventh division title. Brees threw two touchdown passes in a 20-14 win over the Eagles to send the Saints to their third NFC Championship Game. 

New Orleans led 13-0, but the Rams tied the score at 20-20 with five minutes left. Brees drove the Saints to the Los Angeles 13-yard line. A pass to Tommylee Lewis ended with a hit by Nickell Robey-Coleman that might have been early, but definitely ended with contact to Lewis’ head. Had the penalty been called, New Orleans would have had a first down and could have nearly run out the clock before kicking a field goal. Instead, the Will Lutz 31-yard kick came with 1:45 remaining. 

Jared Goff led the Rams down the field to set up Greg Zuerlein game-tying 48-yard kick with 19 seconds left. In overtime, Brees was intercepted by John Johnson and Zuerlein ended the game soon after with a 57-yard field goal. The NFL released an official statement saying Robey-Coleman’s hit should have been a penalty, but by then, Los Angeles was preparing for Super Bowl LIII, which they lost to the Patriots. 

Brees returns for his 14th season with the team, and he is joined by dual-threat back Alvin Kamara, All-Pro receiver Michael Thomas and tight end Jared Cook. The defense is led by Pro Bowl end Cameron Jordan, linebacker Demario Davis, and safety Vonn Bell.

-By: Kevin Rakas