Saints And Sinners
That's because in their quest to turn the Saints' surprising season into a feel good story, sportswriters around the country couldn't help but tie the fortunes of the team to the fortunes of their city. To some extent that was justifiable, as the Saints' success surely did lift the spirits of some New Orleans residents. But people in the press have a tendency to take such connections too far. At times, reading the coverage, it felt like we were being told that a Saints Super Bowl win would have magically solved New Orleans' problems. And while such a win surely would have been good news for the city, the challenges New Orleans faces in the wake of Katrina have little to do with the outcome of a football game.
The Associated Press, for example, today wrote that the "Saints' dream season came to a heartbreaking end Sunday, abruptly sending fans across the city back to the stark reality of post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans." The "stark reality," one imagines, hadn't disappeared when the Saints made the playoffs. Still, that was among the more restrained efforts. Some writers suggested that the Saints were more than mere football team: Stephen Sabludowsky argued that "[m]ore than anything else, they energized a community, brought races together at a time of great friction, ignited hope to a City when its citizens have lost faith in all forms of government, insurance companies and community leaders." The only people not embracing the hype, it seemed, came from – you guessed it – Chicago. "What drives us crazy is the blabbermouth national media, projecting their own desires in their stories, putting the Saints on the side of the angels, and the Bears on the side of Katrina," wrote John Kass.
I know I'm being somewhat cynical about all this. The Saints' success did make a nice story, and it surely had a big impact on the psyche of the city. As the "Early Show" story this morning nicely illustrated, the team's success gave New Orleans residents something to cheer about in the midst of a long period of struggle. But football is not a panacea, even if it does make for some good storylines. A Saints Super Bowl win would have lifted New Orleans' spirits, but it ultimately wouldn't have changed much for those still trying to recover from Katrina, no matter how much the press corps wanted it to.