Showing the love
Center Jonathan Goodwin: “Whenever I get home after a win this year, neighbors have been putting up signs in our neighborhood thanking us, congratulating us, well wishes, it’s amazing to come to home to that.”

Safety Pierson Prioleau: “They are a lot of more respectful than you think. I think it has to do with the freedom to walk around with alcohol anywhere you want. It keeps them relaxed. That’s what we like about our fans. They’re genuine. That’s something no other team has.”

Wide receiver Lance Moore: “This year, so many people have come up to me and told me how long they have been waiting, usually as long as they've been alive, for a team, for an opportunity to go to the Super Bowl. We’re so happy to give that to them.”

Only in New Orleans
Cornerback Malcolm Jenkins: “There’s a lot of stuff that happens that happens in New Orleans that doesn’t happen anywhere else.”

Tight end David Thomas: “I don’t even want to know what Bourbon Street would be like if we won.”

Cornerback Malcolm Jenkins: “Bourbon Street after we won the NFC Championship was crazy … it was like a club out in the street. I don’t see too many other places that passionate.”

Safety Pierson Prioleau: “It’s probably the only city I’ve seen where men dress up in dresses and parade down the streets on Sunday.”

Owner/Executive VP Rita Benson LeBlanc was asked what it would be like if the Saints won the Super Bowl:  “Mass pandemonium for weeks upon weeks. I don’t know if it will cut off at Lent with Fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday. Generally, everything stops after Mardi Gras, but I don’t know. I guarantee you that from Super Bowl to Mardi Gras, it is going to be the biggest time in New Orleans that anyone has ever seen.”

Backup quarterback Mark Brunell’s eyes lit when I asked him if he had a story: “Yes! … But I can’t tell that story for print.”

(About five other players had similar responses.)

After the NFC Championship
Tight end David Thomas: “I got home after the NFC Championship and my ears were still ringing.”

Punter Thomas Morestead: “Last week, I was eating dinner in New Orleans with Garrett (Hartley, the team’s kicker) and (former kicker) John Carney. John is recognizable everywhere he goes. If Garrett wasn’t before last week, he is now. One person comes up and says ‘Hey, nice job.’ After that, it’s non-stop for two hours. We’re just the kicker and punter!

We’re taking pictures with people’s babies, signing body parts, I think it’s great. I said to John, ‘Hey, what do you think when leave, do we get a standing ovation?’

John’s lived here for years, he says ‘No way.’ So we stand up, the rest of the restaurant does too. They all start saying ‘Kick their asses, Go get em, Who dat, all that stuff. Even the other side of the restaurant, the cooks came out to cheer, it was wild.”

Wide receiver Lance Moore: “Just after the NFC championship game, just seeing how emotional the fans were was amazing. They were just saying thank you everywhere I went, hugs, crying, seeing how emotional everyone was. People hanging out of their cars. Honking, yelling, screaming . . . The excitement is hard to envision unless you're there.

A moment in time
At my graduation from Tulane, they played the Louis Armstrong rendition of the classic song “Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?”

At the time, I thought it was almost a cliché. But I didn’t realize how much the city becomes a part of you until I left. It stays in your blood.

After 20 years without a winning record, 33 years without a playoff win, and 42 seasons before a Super Bowl berth, the New Orleans Saints are on the doorstep of history. Win Sunday, and each of the 53 players won’t have to pay for another champagne brunch for the rest of their lives.

These 2009 Saints will always look back at this year as a special moment in time. The further away they get from it, the more nostalgic they will become. They will miss New Orleans, they will return, and they will receive the love all over again. This team became part of something bigger.