When Saints really were Ain'ts

Oh, the humanity …
 
OK. The Saints aren’t a zeppelin burning in Lakehurst, N.J. As far as I know, nobody died in the Superdome last Sunday. Technically, anyway. The Saints are 0-3.
 
We can be forgiven, I guess, for thinking they’d be 3-0 going into the Packers game this week.
 
Alas … You win a Super Bowl, you figure, hey, this is the way life’s going to be. You go 14-4 before losing at San Francisco in last season’s playoffs. You suffer the weirdest lousiest off-season maybe ever, lose your all-world coach for a year, and a lot more besides, you haven’t tackled anybody the last two seasons, and still …
 
Washington, Carolina, Kansas City? Oh, please …
 
Who dat?
 
We can blame the refs. On the bright side, unlike John Fox and Jack del Rio, we didn’t get fined 25 grand for dissing the bums. On the downside, did you see that travesty?
 
Anyway, maybe we can figure the Packers got screwed even more egregiously and have spent valuable time this week venting because they got stone cold robbed at Seattle the other night.
 
Things could be worse. Trust me. I covered the Saints decades ago when J.D. Roberts, second only to owner John Mecum Jr. on the all-time Saints clueless list, coached. After the final game of one particularly awful season, Dave Parks, who had been a fine passing-catching tight end at San Francisco before coming to New Orleans, passed out a press release in the locker room at Tulane Stadium.
 
I read it, one page. It said he would never play for New Orleans again no matter what.
 
“You’re firing the organization?”
“I am,” he said.
 
I laughed.
 
He smiled.
 
At least now, the Saints have a chance.
 
Don’t they?