Coming Back Stronger Part 8

Believe.

You hear a lot of players talk about "believing," and there are several different layers to that. There's the surface-level type of believing, where you acknowledge that something is true. Then there's a deeper kind of belief-the type that gets inside you and actually changes you. It's the kind of belief that changes your behavior, your att.i.tude, and your outlook on life, and the people around you can't help but notice.

The way I see it, belief isn't enough on its own. Once you know the truth, you have to act on it. That's where real faith gets legs. Other people can tell you the truth, but until you own it, it's not worth much. It's only when you move on your belief and exercise faith that real change can come. It's only then that you'll yield concrete results.

In football, it's not enough to believe you have a great football team. I knew we had some great talent in 2006, and that was a start. But until we stepped on the field and put that belief into action, it was hollow. We had to go to work and act on that belief.

Put another way, belief is represented by the football. It's an objective thing that exists outside of me. If I hold on to it and do nothing else with it, I can't lead the team. However, if I have the guts to make the throw to my teammate, I am exercising faith-in myself, in my receiver, and in the coaching staff who put the play together. Faith in action is perfectly carried out on the field.

I had to trust the process when it came to my recovery, too. It wouldn't have been enough to simply believe what my doctors were telling me about my arm, to intellectually a.s.sent to it being true. I could have agreed with Dr. Andrews that it was up to me to work hard and then retreated to the La-Z-Boy. But I needed something more than a "belief" about my comeback. I had to translate that belief into action and actually do the things they told me to do.

Over the years I've come to realize that living out your faith in G.o.d isn't all that different from living out what you believe when you're playing a sport. You can't just talk about it-you've got to prove it with your actions. Following G.o.d is a day-by-day process, something you have to keep focusing on and practicing. It's not some detached or compartmentalized thing that only affects your Sunday mornings. Whether I'm on top of the world with a win or stinging from a bad loss or an injury, I know that G.o.d is there and that he has a plan. To me, G.o.d is more than just "the Man Upstairs" who looks down on us all. He's concerned about us as individuals. He cares about the people of New Orleans. He wants to be near those living in FEMA trailers. He has compa.s.sion for the people who lost their homes and were scattered across the country. He allowed some of these things to happen in our lives so he could shape us and mold us and give us the opportunity to come back stronger. Without the adversity, there would be no opportunity.

Faith is a gift from G.o.d, but it's also a responsibility. It's not enough to have it. You've got to live it out, even when times are tough. One of my favorite quotes is "Your actions speak so loudly I can't hear what you're saying." In other words, don't just say it; be it.

F-A-I-T-H.

When I came to New Orleans in 2006, I saw a lot of T-shirts that had the word Faith on the front. It was a buzzword for the people of the region, signifying that they believed in the city, that it was possible to rebuild. A lot of people took that word and applied it to our team that year too. In many ways people saw the Saints as an extension of the city and everything the community was going through. We were working together in faith, believing that things were going to come back even better than they were before. We kept on believing, even when the results were a long time coming.

As a way to motivate my teammates and give us focus for the season ahead, I often came up with a slogan or phrase to share with the team. That year, my first season with the Saints, I wanted to simplify things and get our minds and hearts in the right place as we started the regular season. I had been thinking a lot about the concept of faith for the past several months, and I decided to break down the word into an acrostic. Each letter of the word held personal meaning for me: Fort.i.tude.

Att.i.tude Integrity Trust.

Humility.

For the first game of the season, we were traveling to the Dawg Pound in Cleveland to play the Browns. The Wednesday before the game we had our first team meeting. I asked Coach Payton if I could have fifteen minutes at the beginning of that meeting to say a few things to the team.

I'd printed out a bunch of sheets with the word FAITH written on them, and I handed them to the guys. Then I put the same thing on the overhead projector and explained my hopes for the year ahead.

"The dictionary defines faith a lot of different ways," I said. "Some of it has to do with religion. Other aspects of the definition talk about allegiance and duty or loyalty. I want you to know what the word means to me, and I also want you to write down what it means to you."

All the guys came up with their own working definitions of faith and wrote them down. I encouraged them to put their papers in the front of their playbooks. "When you're having one of those rough days, take a look at it and remember why you're here and what we're working toward.

"Now I want to tell you what faith means to me," I said. "Fort.i.tude. Att.i.tude. Integrity. Trust. Humility." I put the dictionary definitions of all those words on the screen.

"This is what the dictionary says about these words. But you know what? The way a book defines something can be different from how you view it and apply it in your life.

"When I think about fort.i.tude, what comes to mind isn't the dictionary definition. I think of it as toughness and courage. Fighting for something you know is there but you might not be able to see yet.

"Att.i.tude. To me, att.i.tude speaks to the way you approach life. You can't always determine your circ.u.mstances, but you can always determine your att.i.tude. Att.i.tude is approaching each day with a positive mind-set, a gla.s.s-half-full mentality, knowing that as long as we do things the right way together, good things are going to happen. I have confidence that I can do my job, whatever it is, and I have confidence that the guy next to me is going to do his job. And as we grow together, there's no team that can stop what we're becoming.

"Integrity. A person with integrity does what he says he's going to do. So if you tell me you're going to show up at 6 a.m. to work out, then show up at 6 a.m. to work out. If you say you're going to watch extra film after practice with your teammates, then make sure you're there. We can hold each other accountable to be true to our principles, and that integrity can spread from one person to the next.

"Trust. My last coach, Marty Schottenheimer, used to say, 'Trust is the cornerstone of every meaningful relationship.' You have to be able to trust your teammate. Your teammate has to be able to trust you, and you have to earn that trust and respect every day. And so in everything you do, you have to build that relationship, that trust. You have to give your teammate a reason to believe in you, so make sure you're doing what you're supposed to be doing. And make sure you're doing it the right way.

"And finally, humility. This really sums up the meaning of teamwork. President Harry Truman said, 'It is amazing how much you can accomplish in life if you don't mind who gets the credit.' Guys, if we approach this game and this season with a selfless mentality-doing whatever it takes to help this team, fulfilling the roles we've been given, completing our tasks without worrying about who gets the glory in the end-then we will truly be winners. And we will accomplish great things as a team."

We left that meeting fired up about the season and the team. In the days that followed, one of our team mottoes became "Keep the faith." Faith in each other, faith in the process, faith in our fans, faith in our coaches. And for some of us, faith in the G.o.d who had made all of this possible in the first place. The Bible puts it this way: "Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" (Hebrews 11:1, NIV).

Just One Game.

For lack of better terminology, we'd gotten our tails kicked in preseason. We'd managed to win the first game, but we'd lost the other three. Basically we had been whupped up one side and down the other.

As we headed into the 2006 season, most critics wondered if we'd win even a handful of games. Pundits said our team would probably improve from 2005's 313 record but that with a rookie coach like Sean Payton and a quarterback barely off the injured list, things didn't look too promising. The Carolina Panthers were the favorite to win our division, and no one had much hope of us finishing anywhere but the cellar of the NFC South. Honestly, in the locker room, we were all looking at each other and saying, "Let's just try to win one game, all right? Then we'll worry about the rest. Just one game."

Still, we were on the lookout for something good to happen. Those commentators hadn't really seen us yet. They didn't know what we were capable of doing. We had a pa.s.sion for the game, we had worked hard, and we genuinely cared about each other. We might not have been expecting a Super Bowl ring, but we were serious about winning, and we wanted to do whatever it took to make our goals become reality. And we knew you can't reach a goal if you don't set one.

One of our goals was to return to our home field with pride. For the first time since Hurricane Katrina hit, we'd be playing at the Superdome again. We committed to do everything in our power to win that first game back there-and every home game, if possible. We were going to stand our ground at the Dome. No one was going to come into our house and push us around.

Our offense set goals about being balanced with the run game and the pa.s.s game and taking care of the football. Our defense set goals for being aggressive and taking the ball away. We had team goals and individual goals-concrete ideas about how to move forward and put our beliefs and faith into action. We were motivated to win and give it our best. But inside each of us was a question: how long would it take to win just one game? And inside of me another question burned: how well would my shoulder hold up?

We were about to find answers to those questions in Cleveland.

Chapter Nine.

The Aints.

There was another blessing in disguise that came out of being forced to slow down during my recovery. In the midst of getting my arm back into shape, I also had time to learn more about the history and people of New Orleans. I suppose it's possible to play for a team and not have their story impact you, but that's not the kind of person I am. I like to immerse myself in the team's history and culture and put everything happening now into context. When it comes to football, whether it's for better or for worse, there's no team with richer history than the New Orleans Saints.

The Saints were organized in 1967. Since music is a big part of the city's ethos, it made sense to name the team after the well-known jazz song "When the Saints Go Marching In." Ironically, the team was formed on November 1, 1966, which also happens to be All Saints' Day. In the four decades following, the team had a reputation around the league of being hard workers but not being able to put together many wins. They didn't have any Super Bowl appearances, despite the talented players and coaches who had been part of the franchise over the years. But to me, out of all the players in the club's history, the one name that rose above the others was Archie Manning.

Archie played with the Saints for ten full seasons after getting drafted out of Ole Miss in 1971. Sadly, his teams didn't win a lot of games. In fact, during Archie's best season with the Saints, the team only went 88. Despite that, he went to the Pro Bowl twice and garnered many awards for his outstanding play.

But Archie Manning is more than a football player. He's an outstanding citizen of New Orleans and an exemplary humanitarian. Archie has made his home here and has supported the team over the years. I was told early on that none of the Saints players since Archie have ever lived in the Garden District or Uptown, where we bought our home. He and his wife, Olivia, welcomed us to town with open arms.

"Hey, anything you need, let us know," Archie said.

He was true to his word. If I needed to know where to take Brittany for a nice night out, Archie gave me guidance. He and Olivia are such cla.s.sy people, and as soon as we arrived in the city, they extended us an invitation to dinner at their house. They were role models to us in reaching out to the community, as they were integral to New Orleans's rebuilding efforts after Katrina. Their presence alone gives people hope and a sense of pride in their city. They raised three sons who grew up cheering for the Saints and have deep roots in this area.

For most of the history of the franchise, it wasn't easy to be a Saints fan. They never even made it to the playoffs in the first twenty years of their existence. Some may remember difficult years when fans would come to games with paper bags on their heads. The team was affectionately (or not so affectionately) referred to as the Aints.

There were high points, of course. The first regular-season play in Saints history was John Gilliam's ninety-four-yard kickoff return for a touchdown in Tulane Stadium. Then in 1970 Tom Dempsey set an NFL record with his sixty-three-yard field goal, a record that was tied by Jason Elam but still stands today. But in spite of those few shining moments, disappointment and frustration seemed to plague the team year after year. That frustration spilled over to the fans. They desperately wanted to will the Saints to victory, but every season they seemed to be inching closer, another setback hit.

In the late 1980s, under Jim Mora, the Saints put together some good seasons. In 1987 they finally made it to the playoffs but lost their first NFC wild card game to Minnesota. Three years later they made it back to the wild card game and lost to Chicago. It was the first of three consecutive playoff appearances-and wild card game losses-in the 1990s. It looked like they had a chance to win their first ever playoff game in 1992, but the Philadelphia Eagles came back in the fourth quarter and buried the hopes of the fans and players.

This was a city that had hosted the Super Bowl seven times in twenty-one years but had never gotten close to playing in one. No matter how hard they played, no matter how frenzied the fans got, at the end of the year they always went home unhappy.

The frustration built as the years pa.s.sed. In 1996, after a loss to the Carolina Panthers, head coach Jim Mora summed up the disappointment of not just that game but all the years of coming close and not being able to overcome. "We couldn't make a first down. We couldn't run the ball. We didn't try to run the ball. We couldn't complete a pa.s.s. We couldn't stop the run. . . . I'm totally embarra.s.sed and totally ashamed. Coaching did a horrible job. The players did a horrible job. . . . It stunk."

The next day Jim Mora resigned. In 1997 NFL Hall of Famer Mike Ditka was hired to coach the team, but his efforts were also unsuccessful. The team desperately needed something good to happen.

In 2000 the curse was finally broken. The Saints finally won their first playoff game in a thriller against the St. Louis Rams. But the next game and the next few years proved to be disappointing. In 2004 there was talk that the team might move away from New Orleans. San Antonio, Los Angeles, and Albuquerque were mentioned. Some thought that moving from the Crescent City would give the team a fresh start. Leave the past behind.

Those sentiments intensified later in 2005, but this time it was because of a meteorological phenomenon, not a football catastrophe. At the beginning of that season, a Category 5 hurricane hit, convincing most people that relocation was the only answer. No one knew for sure at that point, but the way things were going, it looked like the Saints would be marching out.

From Superdome to Ground Zero.

As I was getting ready for the 2005 season in San Diego, news reports trickled in about a big storm heading toward the Gulf Coast. On Friday, August 26, the Saints played a preseason game against the Baltimore Ravens at the Superdome, and they were now looking ahead to their season opener at Carolina. Just two days later, Katrina hit land. The fallout from that storm resulted in the loss of hundreds of lives and billions of dollars worth of damage. It was the costliest natural disaster in the history of the United States, and people are still trying to recover. It's impossible to overstate the tragedy, not just by financial standards, but also in terms of personal loss. The trauma experienced by individuals, families, churches, and communities is incalculable.

When the storm hit, the team and everyone a.s.sociated with it felt the devastation. Everyone was displaced-players, coaches, people in the front office, hot dog vendors, those who sold T-shirts. The Superdome was ground zero for those who were unable to evacuate from the city. The horrific reports of dead bodies and criminal activity there in the days following the disaster turned out to be largely unfounded. But the human misery experienced at the Superdome and the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center was palpable. People were hungry and thirsty, and the living conditions quickly became unbearable. These people had just lived through the loss of their homes and belongings, and now they found themselves in another appalling situation.

Not that a tragedy like this was totally unexpected. This type of storm was something residents had feared for years. As history had proven, hurricanes that push through this area of the country tend to pick up steam because of the warm water in the Gulf of Mexico. Since much of New Orleans and many of the outlying areas are below sea level, a series of levees, ca.n.a.ls, and dams had been constructed so storms wouldn't overwhelm the area.

There is a misconception that when the storm hit, it simply overcame the levees, causing everything to flood. But you have to understand the intricacies of the waterways in the New Orleans area. The Mississippi River winds around the city in the shape of a crescent. New Orleans is bordered by Lake Pontchartrain to the north and the Mississippi River to the south, and that water eventually flows out into the Gulf. But there are also ca.n.a.ls that run from Pontchartrain down into the city. Within those ca.n.a.ls a system of pumps helps alleviate high water. When it rains hard in New Orleans-and it can rain really hard here in the spring and the fall-city streets flood, and there is standing water on the roads. The pumping stations take that excess water and dump it back into the ca.n.a.ls and Lake Pontchartrain.

When people were ordered to evacuate before Katrina hit, the pumping stations were also evacuated. There were inevitably going to be floodwaters because of the magnitude of the storm. However, if the pumping stations had remained functional, the flooding might have ended much more quickly. Of course, that didn't happen, and what the people of New Orleans experienced was a ma.s.sive loss of lives and property.

Another misconception is that Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River overflowed. The truth is, the water got pushed down the ca.n.a.ls, and the pressure of all that ca.n.a.l water is what caused the levees to break. When that happened, the flooding was almost instantaneous. There were some places where a wall of water came into a community and homes were literally lifted off their foundations and washed away. The people who had stayed behind were overwhelmed in a heartbeat. I can't imagine what it must have been like to see a towering wave heading straight toward you.

In the Ninth Ward, there were even more complications. The Industrial Ca.n.a.l runs into the Ninth Ward, and some bigger cargo ships were there when the hurricane hit. A barge came loose from its mooring and rammed into a levee wall. The wall was breached, causing unprecedented flooding in the Ninth Ward and Lower Ninth Ward.

The entire city had been dealt a crushing blow. Hundreds of thousands of people in and around New Orleans were displaced. The roof of the Superdome was damaged, making it impossible to play there, and the Saints were forced to relocate to San Antonio, Texas. From there, the team traveled around like a vagabond group, playing home games at various stadiums. The guys who returned in 2006 told me it was the worst experience of their lives. They were forced to adapt to an unfamiliar place quickly while the worry about their homes and city was still fresh in their hearts. Living away from home and practicing at subpar facilities all year made many of the guys feel like they had been forgotten.

The first game for the Saints in 2005, played at Carolina, was a heroic effort. Deuce McAllister scored two touchdowns, and John Carney hit a forty-seven-yard field goal with seven seconds left to secure the win. The next game was to be their home opener against the New York Giants. The team hoped to play in San Antonio or Baton Rouge, which would at least be close to their still-reeling New Orleans. Either city seemed an appropriate place for a charity game to support victims of the storm. But the NFL made the decision to hold that Monday night game at the Meadowlands in New Jersey, aka Giants Stadium. It was a Saints "home" game in their opponent's stadium. That location decision upset a lot of the Saints players, and the team lost 2710.

Perhaps the low moment of that early season came in Green Bay, when Deuce McAllister took a pa.s.s in the third quarter and his foot got caught in the turf at Lambeau Field. He tore his ACL and was out for the remainder of the year. The Saints lost that game in humiliating fashion, 523.

Football players like the structure of an NFL schedule and feed on that. But there was anything but structure to their lives that season. They woke up in hotel rooms each morning, practiced at high school fields, and tried to get into a regimen in unfamiliar weight rooms. Some players were reeling over damage to their homes, and others had friends and family members who had been completely displaced. With so much upheaval, it was difficult to focus, and the team went 313 that year. Coach Jim Haslett was fired at the end of the season.

On all levels 2006 was a year of rebuilding for the city. Renovation began on the Superdome that eventually cost millions. The people in the community returned and began reconstructing their lives as best they could. And it was into that rebuilding mind-set that Sean Payton was hired. In the midst of all the upheaval, the 2006 Saints held a special place in people's hearts. You could take them away from their homes, uproot them from their neighborhoods, and dunk their city under twelve feet of water, but you couldn't take away the love they had for their team. It was a bond that couldn't be broken. Those fans gave us the love and motivation we needed for what we hoped to accomplish that year.

The Season Begins.

On September 10, 2006, we played our opening game at the Cleveland Browns Stadium. Like the Saints, the Browns have a storied tradition in the NFL. With names like Paul Brown, Jim Brown, Bernie Kosar, and others, Cleveland has given their fans something to cheer about over the years. Unfortunately they, too, had fallen on hard times and in recent years had a streak of teams that put out extreme effort but earned few wins.

That season Cleveland and New Orleans were viewed as two of the teams at the bottom of the league. The year before, the Browns had won six to our three. After such a rough preseason, our goal was to just figure out how to win one game. We focused on Cleveland and scratched and clawed the entire contest, with John Carney kicking four field goals. Our rookie running back, Reggie Bush, had 141 all-purpose yards and helped us control the ball. Our defense helped us out with a solid game, and we ended up eking out a 1914 win.

It wasn't pretty; we basically had to grind out the win. But it was a victory all the same, and beating them on their home field gave us a measure of confidence. The locker room afterward was a happy place-we had achieved our goal of winning that first game. But we knew we had our work cut out for us the next week.

Next Sunday we were on the road again to face the Packers. Lambeau Field is always a difficult place to play-we knew their fans would be out in force. The memory of the Packers embarra.s.sing our team the year before with a 523 win gave us that extra edge to motivate us. I don't live in the past, but we certainly wanted to use what had happened the previous October to spur us on. We wanted to send the message that this was 2006, and we were a different team.

Beating Cleveland was definitely a start, a stepping stone. Take care of the first game and then you can move on to the second. It would take a lot more to face Green Bay at their place against Brett Favre. If we could somehow pull off a victory against the Packers, it would carry a lot more weight.

We knew we were underdogs, and in the first quarter we played like it. On our first three possessions, I had three turnovers, giving up two fumbles and throwing an interception. Both fumbles occurred on sacks in the pocket when a defensive end hit my arm as I was throwing. Hits like these can cause shoulder injuries even to healthy arms, but thankfully I came away from both plays feeling durable. Unfortunately, that didn't change the fact that Green Bay walked away with the ball in their hands-twice. The Packers scored thirteen unanswered points, and from all objective viewpoints, it looked like they were on their way to a blowout, just like the previous year. That was not the way I had envisioned my first-quarter performance, and human nature was telling me it was time to get really frustrated and start berating myself. You blew it! Are you sure you belong here?

But I hadn't come that far to quit. And we hadn't come that far as a team to quit either. We could have lamented our misfortune, packed up, and headed home. But something was brewing. Something was going on that the fans at Lambeau and the people watching on television couldn't see. They had no idea how hard we had worked to get where we were. They had no idea of the desire burning in the belly of each player on our team. And they had no idea how much the people of New Orleans meant to us. We were playing for them. So instead of listening to that voice of defeat, I kept visualizing doing things the right way and focusing on what I'd been coached to do.

The tide turned in the second quarter. We scored two touchdowns, one on a Deuce McAllister run and another on a twenty-six-yard pa.s.s to Devery Henderson. That brought us into the lead at the half, 1413. In the third quarter we added two John Carney field goals, but the Packers came back with a touchdown on the second play of the fourth quarter and tied it 2020.

An underdog team is not supposed to win in Green Bay. But we weren't concerned about that particular Packer tradition. Six and a half minutes into the fourth quarter, we scored a touchdown. Less than thirty seconds later, we scored another. By the time Brett Favre got his offense rolling, the game was over. We won 3427.

That win was a watershed moment for us. We had faced adversity, and we hadn't let it get us down. After the game we talked about what was different for the Saints now. That was a game the Saints probably would have lost in previous years-not necessarily because the team wasn't as talented but because they didn't have the positive mentality and belief we exhibited. We really believed we could overcome any situation we found ourselves in. We knew how hard we had worked to get to this point, and we felt confident that the team across the field couldn't have put in that much sweat and effort. No matter what kind of hole we'd dug for ourselves, we still believed we could go out there and win.

There have been times in my life when I've worked hard, when I'm doing things the right way, and I'm just not getting the opportunities. The people of New Orleans experienced that during the rebuilding after Katrina. People who have been hit hard by the economy feel that way. You don't know why, but things are really tough. In that moment, there's a temptation to give up. When you've been beaten down and beaten down some more, human nature tells you that it's not worth it to try to get up again. You might as well stay down, because if you struggle to your feet, you're just going to get whacked. And when the next bad thing comes along, you shrug and say, "See, there it is. That figures."

You have to fight that mentality with everything in you. You have to look around and believe that the negative stuff is there to strengthen you and can eventually lead to a big break. But you have to be on the lookout for it, and you have to keep believing that G.o.d can work in the midst of even the most trying circ.u.mstances. Adversity equals opportunity. The only way to believe that is to lift yourself up from the ground. Getting up is always the first step.

After our hard-fought win against Cleveland and then surprising everyone by beating Green Bay in their house, we were gaining momentum at a rapid pace. We had played some inspired football and put two wins together, and with that we believed we could do anything. We could beat anybody who came along.

Those two wins set up a huge game for my career-and all our careers, for that matter. It was time to come home.

Homecoming.

For the first time since December 26, 2004, the New Orleans Saints were playing a regular-season home game in the Louisiana Superdome. The city was ready. The support of the fans still sends chills down my spine. Many thought that this moment might never happen again, with talk after the storm of the Saints moving to another city and the Superdome being torn down because of all the damage. But on September 25, 2006, there we were. We were up against our division rival the Atlanta Falcons, returning home to the Superdome after a twenty-one-month hiatus. It doesn't get much better than that.

In 2005 the season ticket sales for the Saints were somewhere around 32,000 out of the 70,000 seats in the Superdome. In 2006 it would have been understandable if barely any of the seats were filled. After all, people were living out of FEMA trailers, doing battle with insurance companies, short on funds, and trying to find work after so many businesses had been wiped out. On top of that, the Superdome was still in bad shape, and prognosticators warned of a lackl.u.s.ter season at best for us. But when we walked into the stadium for that first home game, we were shocked to see that the people of New Orleans had come out in full force. The seats were filled-in fact, the 2006 season tickets sold out months in advance.

With so many people barely making ends meet financially as they worked to rebuild their homes and their lives, it was incredible how many had found a way to buy season tickets. We knew there could be only one reason. They looked to our team as a symbol of hope, as something to lift their spirits during those trying times. Our team represented the struggles everyone from New Orleans was going through, and if we could win, then maybe they, too, could overcome the suffering Katrina had caused. An even stronger bond was beginning to form between the fans and the team, and it would carry us all to a place we had only dreamed we could be.

There was palpable electricity in the air that night. Not only was it a battle for the NFC South, but there was also the historic rivalry between the two teams. Ask anybody walking down the street in New Orleans about the Atlanta Falcons, and chances are you'll hear some saucy language. Even if we'd both been 02, it would have been a contest. But as it was, we were both unbeaten going in.

What made that night so memorable, though, was not the rivalry. It was what the game symbolized. Over the past year the city had put up with rumors, snide remarks, put-downs, and conjecture that New Orleans was dead. With a city that's below sea level and a levee system in need of being completely revamped, there was the very real threat of hurricanes coming through the Gulf each year and wreaking damage. Some said, "Just let it go. There are too many bad memories. The cause is hopeless." The people of New Orleans didn't buy that, and neither did the team. This was our home. With this game we were going to show everyone the pa.s.sion and emotion that New Orleans possessed. The team was rising, the people were rising, and the city was rising. On Monday night, we would show the world that New Orleans was not only coming back, we were coming back stronger.

This would be my first chance to play in front of the home crowd in the Superdome. I finally had the opportunity to be in front of our fans-my fans. These were the people who had welcomed me with open arms after the injury, rehab, and free agency signing. I felt like I had something to prove to them. I wanted to show them I'd been a worthwhile investment and I could lead them.

That game symbolized recovery for me, for the Saints, and for the region. We were coming back. No matter what anybody said-the skeptics who thought I'd never throw again, the critics who didn't believe New Orleans could recover, those who said it wasn't smart to invest money in something that would just flood again-none of that would matter after we showcased our team on Monday night.

There was a pregame concert by the Goo Goo Dolls outside the Dome, and U2 and Green Day played on the field before the game. It was fitting that they came together that night to sing their own version of "The Saints Are Coming"-almost a foreshadowing of the outcome of that game . . . and of what the next four years would hold. It all had to start somewhere, so why not now? There was such an energy that night, an atmosphere of joy. The fans were ready to cheer us on to the first-place spot in the division.

However, we didn't get to enjoy the festivities leading up to the game. We were focused with great intensity on giving it everything we had, just as Sean Payton had prepared us to do. He did something the Sat.u.r.day before the game I will never forget.