But unlike the NBA’s New Orleans Hornets, who vow to come back as soon as they can from playing home games in Oklahoma City and Baton Rouge, Benson stops short of committing to the city beyond this season. He “has the desire” to return, but “no decision has been made about the future of the team because no decision has been made about the future of New Orleans. Our city endured one of the worst catastrophes in history and I clearly stated in the days following that it is our desire to be at the table during the rebuilding and revitalization of our city. However, there are many factors that will affect the future of our team, the same factors that will affect the future of many other companies when faced with the decision to return to the city of New Orleans.”

For example, one factor is, will the Saints even have a field to play on? It’s not as if the Superdome, such an iconic symbol of New Orleans, not the least because it’s only stadium to co-star in a television movie with Tom Selleck (1978’s “Superdome”), is ready to go. The stadium suffered extensive physical damage.

It also suffered extensive psychic damage. Even if it turns out some of the horror stories about the 30,000 refugees stuck for days after Katrina were overblown, the Superdome still was a giant representation of all that the hurricane exposed: the city’s grinding poverty, and government’s inept response to a storm everyone knew was coming. It’s been reported that Benson might invoke a clause in his Superdome lease declaring the stadium unusable. Could you really argue with him?

Even if there were a place to play, there’s the question of who would show. If New Orleans is a metro area of about 650,000 instead of 1.2 million, that cuts considerably into the fan base. That means many businesses would never return. One of Benson’s problems pre-Katrina was that New Orleans didn’t have a lot of big-time corporations available to support the team. Certainly that problem would get worse if people don’t come back. And even for those who come back, will they have the desire, or the money, to buy tickets to see a game, wherever it’s played?

The decision on whether the Saints return to New Orleans might not be all Benson’s. Various reports have come out suggesting the NFL might just decide to up and move the team to Los Angeles, where the league has desired a team since the Rams and Raiders left in 1994.

Commissioner Paul Tagliabue has long derided San Antonio as a “small market,” but what if that city came up with the money to renovate the Alamodome to Benson’s liking? (By the way, San Antonio is home to some of Benson’s many auto dealerships in Texas and Louisiana.) Apparently, the NFL, which has tried and failed for years to get Los Angeles authorities to build a new football stadium, would rather stick what is sure to be a tainted and unpopular team in a dilapidated L.A. Memorial Coliseum or cavernous Rose Bowl rather than take a potentially more profitable San Antonio deal.

No doubt, Benson, once loved as the man who danced with his umbrella whenever the Saints won, loved as the only owner to ever get the Saints into the playoffs, has had a tin ear when it comes to public relations. Even if he didn’t, the battle over whether to stay or leave New Orleans is one he can’t win. And maybe he shouldn’t win, given his past desire for a new stadium and his past ability to wring millions upon millions upon millions of dollars in taxpayer money to keep the Saints in town.

Still, with a stadium and city that’s still a long ways from recovery, Benson, like any New Orleans business owner, is stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place. At this point, he’s having to ponder the advice given by Kenny Rogers — the bearded singer, not the hot-tempered pitcher — about knowing when to hold ’em, knowing when to fold ’em, and maybe knowing when to walk away. Though if he does walk away, he’d also better know when to run

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