New Orleans Saints

McNair played 13 seasons in the NFL and was 2003 co-MVP

The New Orleans Saints released veteran longsnapper Kevin Houser this week, with little explanation. Why do you think it happened? Vote in our poll and tell us....

Houser: 'If anything, I feel like I was an ambassador for the state.'

Gov. Bobby Jindal's deal to keep the New Orleans Saints in Louisiana throughout 2025 gained legislative approval Thursday and is close to completion.

Defensive tackle La'Roi Glover has announced his retirement after 13 seasons in the NFL.

The New Orleans Saints have promoted executive Dennis Lauscha, who helped the team negotiate a lease extension for the Louisiana Superdome.

The late Charlton Heston did not win any Oscars for his role as Saints QB Ron "Cat" Catlin in 1969's Number One, but 40 years later the "B" movie remains a novelty.

Catlin is an over the hill QB coming off a recent championship and the slow moving plot revolves around his decision to keep playing or retire, which descends it into a yarn about  star athlete ego in excess. There is a crumbling marriage, an affair and the upcoming season, and throughout the course of the movie, the viewer waits for redemptive qualities in Catlin but ultimately is provided with very little. His wife and fleeting mistress, played by Jessica Walter and Diana Muldaur, are spunky and sexy, are the better halves of the couplings and the plot should have included much more of them.

A young Bruce Dern stole the show, playing Heston's former wide receiver who has moved on with his life with no regrets and is better adjusted for it, having walked away from the game before it walks away from him. He is definitive Sixties hip. Locker room appearances from various old former Saints like big Doug Atkins and Dave Whitsell are endearing, as is a club scene with the venerable Al Hirt, as himself.  N'Awlins, baby.           

Despite the screenplay's flaws, there are many alluring scenes for Saints - and New Orleans - fans. Game and crowd footage from grand old Tulane Stadium is excellent, providing a pleasant trip down memory lane for older ones and a glimpse of what it was like for younger ones who have only experienced the Saints in the comparatively sterile Superdome.

A good scene takes place in Audubon Park, when the rookie back-up who wants Heston's job, played by Kelly Williams, effectively tells him, "Look man, you were one of the greats, like Tittle.....Unitas, but it's over. Sorry man - the king is dead". The casting director was somewhat prescient in making that role for a black quarterback, which  hardly existed in 1969; it may have been to stir a little "controversy" and sell more tickets.

There are some cool scenes of Heston tooling around in a big, steely American car in the Quarter at night, and on lower St. Charles. There are also scenes in the original Saints ticket headquarters on Lee Circle with then Saints GM Vic Schwenk playing himself, as well as practice clips in the team's first facility out on David Drive and Airline Highway that bristle with the scent of training camp and a season anew, making the movie timely viewing for this summer.           

Four decades later, the original Saints uniforms with gold pants and white or black jerseys, with jazzy striping and numbering, are still far superior to those homogenized versions of today. Uniforms change subtly over time but when Jim Mora became head coach in the 1980's, he had them patterned after those of the Steelers to shake a "loser's image". That malarkey has sufficiently expired and a grass roots movement to bring them back should begin.

The music is mostly good, period background stuff, handled by Beverly Hills composer Dominic Frontiere, which has a twist onto itself. Mr. Frontiere eventually headed Paramount's music division in the 1970's, but made headlines for both being the ex-husband of Rams owner Georgia Frontiere (she had several) and serving prison time for a Super Bowl ticket scalping scandal in 1980, which reportedly netted him with about a half million IRS un-reported dollars from tickets provided by his ex.  

Georgia Frontiere (who died 18 months ago from breast cancer) was a former sometime night club singer and chorus line performer, a buxom, blonde, fast-laner. She was thrust into the pro football world in April 1979 when her then husband, Carroll Rosenbloom, the owner of the Los Angeles Rams, drowned in the ocean while swimming near his Florida home. At the time, some thought the drowning was suspicious since Rosenbloom was known to be an adroit swimmer and the surf that day was not up.

Rosenbloom had groomed his son from a previous marriage, Steve, as his successor, but he left 70 percent of the Rams' ownership to his wife, evidently to minimize estate taxes. She quickly asserted control as the first and only female owner in pro football, firing her stepson and replacing him as the team's general manager, and subsequently moved the Rams from Los Angeles to St. Louis in a lucrative new stadium deal (come to think of it, this is all good screenplay material itself........).

It's always been difficult to make a high quality film about pro football. Many of them have not been been made with league consent for trademark use of teams and logos (Number One is an exception - the game footage uses actual teams and players, though Heston looks every bit the 46 that he was when the film as made, breaking a rib in the process), which stretches the believability factor. Also, how many twists can there be on the somewhat tired sports cliché of overcoming adversity to win? And how much of that adversity is real - or Hollywood contrived?

Brian's Song (1971) was a sentimental fact based favorite about Brian Piccolo and Gale Sayers' race blind, cancer terminal friendship while they were with the Bears. I still need to see The Longest Yard (1974) with Burt Reynolds as a former pro in prison in its entirety. Former Cowboy Peter Gent's novel, North Dallas Forty (1979) was an acclaimed movie with Animal House theatrics, starring Nick Nolte and country singer Mac Davis. Incidentally, actor G.D. Spradlin played head coach in both that film (as Tom Landry) and Number One (as then Saints head coach Tom Fears).

Tom Cruise as player agent Jerry Maguire (1996) told lots more about the real business of pro ball than did Oliver Stone's so called expose, Any Given Sunday (1999). Besides trying to get used to seeing Al Pacino as a football coach, the movie was a  typical media  over-hyped, melodramatic bust (save a good player on painkillers performance by  Lawrence Taylor), leaving some fans scratching their heads why they were even fans of the damn game.

Perhaps the best of the lot is 2006's under-rated Invincible, starring Mark Wahlberg in a true story about former Eagle receiver Vince Papale's ascendance from bartender to pro football player after a walk-on tryout at the beginning of the Dick Vermeil era in Philadelphia in the 1970's. Greg Kinnear ably plays Coach Vermeil in all polyester, eager beaver detail. There are archives from NFL Films and the rest of the playing footage is plenty real, and good.         

Number One spawns no sharp reactions either way other than being the greatest bad movie ever made for Saints aficionados. It was made during a simpler, stiffer, yet in some ways arguably better, era. The original United Artists poster for the flick includes "When you are Number One, you have no where to go but down!"  In the end, how far Cat Catlin goes down is less categorical and more subject to viewer's interpretation and preference, mildly controversial in that regard. The answer has hardly kept movie viewers sleepless all this time yet Number One remains on the recommended list.    

Number One is not easy to find. A friend graciously found and sent me a copy.  It's doubtful your local video store will have the DVD. Cursory Netflix and Amazon searches did not yield it. In January a message board on media hub IMDB.com said Eddie Brandt's Video (818-506-4242) might have it for $16 or so, and am told that Steve Perry at sportsdiscs08@gmail.com might have it. Seems local TV stations like WWL and WDSU TV could be convinced to show it in place of tedious syndicate reruns, if emailed enough.       

   

  

 

   

  

 

Does it seem that long ago that the Saints played a few home games in Tiger Stadium before Division IA sized college crowds while owner Tom Benson reportedly was threatened with violence outside the press box, being quoted as fearing for his life? 

Does it seem that long ago that the Saints had all but moved to San Antonio, ultimately en route to Los Angeles, while boarded up houses spray painted with FEMA'S dreaded X's in New Orleans accumulated more mold?

Does it seem that long ago that then Commisioner Paul Tagliabue was annointed the role of White Knight by the media for his role in keeping the Saints in New Orleans - for the time being - after the greatest natural disaster in U.S. history?   

Does it seem that long ago - Pre K - that owner Tom Benson moaned and groaned about people not buying enough tickets to see the team, and that maybe New Orleans was not an NFL caliber city?  

Of coures it doesn't. In fact, it seems too recent, way too recent, which makes today's news of the Saints selling out for the 4th consecutive season - with more than a 50,000 waiting list - more than a passing blurb.    

Hindsight has a way of providing perspective on the relative absurdity of it all.

To top it off, the Saints and the State of Louisiana have negotiated the teams' presence in the Crescent City until about 2023.  To boot, the Super Bowl will finally return here after a shameful decade plus absence by the league. All those new stadiums in other venues later, and the consensus is still a slam dunk that nobody can host the Big Game, or the Big Party,  like New Orleans.

Call it a minor miracle, or indicative of the wizardry of Father Time.  And some redemption for those who have chosen to Keep The Faith.

The news is hardly all appeasing. Who Dat faithful still worry if their team can really compete for it all come September, if they can stop people from out-scoring their potent offense, and if the new season will go south into another forty-something fall. They worry if Drew Brees will get hurt, or if Sean Payton was a one hit wonder. They worry if Reg-gie will ever be what he was advertised to be.

In the bigger picture, Saints fans have more important things to worry about. Like their jobs, their homes, their kids' educations, if they can afford to get sick, their cars - when this nasty thing called a recession but in reality is a black hole - when and if this malaise will ever come to an end.

Traditional optimism about the future has become unhinged by cover the ass in the present, just like during the aftermath of a hurricane.  

Saints fans also worry - or position themselves - for who the next Mayor will be, Mr. Nagin having worn out his welcome.  They are still trying to understand Bobby Jindall, resigned to that being a waste of time, again reminded that politicians remain moving targets of expediency, irrespective of party, the spineless jellyfish of the sea. Predictably, that sentiment has run back to Capitol Hill and the White House after the latest propaganda campaigns of change have already run their course.

They are used to all the petty bickering among councilmen at City Hall, with some if it finally starting to seethe underneath their skins, but too concerned about their own welfares to do anything about it. Except mostly for people like Garland Robinette, who make a living doing it on talk radio.  

Some still wonder why former Gov. Kathleen Blanco and some in her adminsitration were never at least indicted for involuntary manslaughter after what transpired here in 2005. 

The laissez-faire and charm that has accompanied being a New Orleanian, and a Saints fan, has been dissipated by present day circumstance and reality. No matter how good the news   may be, there is something potentially adverse lurking just behind it.

Sign of the times; the best and worst of times for Saints fans.   

In the wee hours (no pun intended) of last Saturday night, two Saints free agent prospects reportedly urinated in public and exposed themselves to two women in the parking lot of an apartment complex in Elmwood. They were subsequently booked by Jefferson Parish authorities on charges of obscenity, public drunkenness and related charges.

Apparently, the players did not read or adhere to NFL Handbook Rule 101, which advises against urinating in public, and 101A, which strongly suggests not compounding the situation with lewd conduct if caught in such a compromising position.

These disconcerting events had reverberations throughout Who Dat Nation.  

Would Saints marketers in the front office have to change the beloved slogan, Bless You Boys, into - Boys Will Be Boys?  Will the use of Geaux Saints, Geaux still be considered appropriate?

Counsel for their defense has a tall order. They will likely contend that some of the evidence has dried up and that if the passers by were male, a complaint likely would not have been made. Defense best not claim the latter, to avoid incurring any wrath from the special interest group WARP (Women Against Random Peeing). The prosecution will likely overwhelm the judge with aggravating circumstances.

What will their sentence be? Will community service require them to relieve themselves in a state facility twice a day in the presence of corrections officers to verify that it was done - in a urinal? What happens if they miss? Will they be further penalized for personal foul, or intentional grounding?  Let's hope it doesn't degenerate into an analysis of what is and isn't allowed outside the pocket.

During the whistle-blowing, hustle bustle of training camp drills this summer, assistant coaches will have to think twice before exhorting the troops with a standard battle cry, "C'mon, let's see what 'ya got!"

Such transgressions have not been recalled (or at least reported) by Saints players, thus Biren Ealy and Kolomana Kapanui will go down as having put their own set of  footprints, er, stains, on franchise history.

There are about 80 bodies on the roster, about 1/3 of which will not be come September, making their slim chances of making the team that much more remote. In fact, they were   just cut, effectively having pissed away their opportunities to become Saints.    

Wide out Lance Moore, the team’s leading receiver a year ago, had surgery in mid-April to repair a torn labrum and dislocated shoulder suffered while lifting weights. He’ll likely be limited early in training camp as he continues to rehab. Also, TE Dan Campbell had arthroscopic knee surgery in early June and backup C Nick [...]

Now after the cursing and swearing is over, you can take a look at what my reasoning is. In 2008 the Saints led the league in passing not just because of Drew Brees great arm but because the offense had to rely on it too much. With a lacking running game and a [...]

The Saints have a new long snapper, as the team has signed veteran Jason Kyle, in the meantime releasing long snapper Kevin Houser. “Jason is a quality veteran player and we saw in him a chance to upgrade our kicking game,” Saints General Manager Mickey Loomis said in a statement. “I’ve known him since we [...]