Lofty Expectations

            A topic of interest that comes to mind after this past weekend is past super bowl champions and their season after.  With the New Orleans Saints struggling to get back on track with a loss the Arizona Cardinals, it looks as if the Saints are following the path of other previous champions.  Since 1990 there has only been five teams to go back to the super after wining or losing.  What is even more interesting is the fact that most champions don’t make it back.  The Cowboys and Bills of the early 90’s along with the Broncos and the Packers from the late 90’s all went to consecutive super bowls.  Then there was the New England who went to two consecutive super bowls in 2004 and 2005.  If you count all the other teams there was thirty teams that didn’t make it back to the super after a year where they either won it all or lost it all.  This brings me to our beloved New Orleans Saints, which hadn’t been to the playoff more than five times before last season.  Last season was also the first time that they won back-to-back playoff games, which in itself was an accomplishment for the Saints.   Five out of thirty five teams were able to go back-to-back super bowl appearance, which means the Saints really only have a 14% chance of making it back.  So with this all said there must be a reason for such a disparity in what is actually possible for most NFL teams.  This leads me to rethink how I feel and maybe how others should feel about this year’s team.  Other teams with better defenses and better players weren’t able to do it.  So why, oh why should the Saints be any different from the other 86%.  In all fairness the New Orleans Saints have overachieved by wining the super bowl let alone playing in two back to back.  So it is for that reason that I declare this season a super success no matter what the outcome is.  If they can make it back then they become an all time great team and if they don’t they are still the only team to bring a super bowl to Mardi Gras Louisiana.