East Rutherford, N.J. – The place to start with Hurricane Katrina’s agonizing toll in New Orleans is death. Thus far, 1,086 bodies have been recovered.
Nothing compares to that, certainly not the effect on the Saints’ season. The Saints had dropped six straight before beating the New York Jets 21-19 on Sunday.
Maybe we all have considered that it has been excruciating on the Saints, a chief reason a season of promise turned into rubble and a 3-8 record.
“You take however difficult you think it has been – and then multiply that times 10,” Saints coach Jim Haslett said.
They moved their offices from New Orleans to San Antonio. They bus 20 minutes to practice, to high school fields, and one of the fields they use is mostly dirt. Their weight room is under a tent. Only two of the players and two of the coaches have moved their families to San Antonio. The others have their families scattered throughout Louisiana and the rest of the country.
Four front-office personnel have resigned, unwilling to stick it out.
Before playing at Green Bay in their fifth game of the season, the Saints tried to practice one day and could not get on the field because of a Special Olympics event. The next day, an ROTC group had first dibs, preventing practice.
On one occasion they were able to practice in the Alamodome in San Antonio and workers laid down the artificial turf. But there was no padding underneath. Just concrete. The players practiced on it, anyway, forgoing riding one more dreaded bus to practice.
“The logistics of things are so strange that we had a game in New England where we got back home at 9:30 p.m.,” Haslett said. “We had a game at LSU in Baton Rouge recently where we got back at 10:30 p.m.
“I had a player get a DUI recently in San Antonio. I asked him why and what happened. He said he was so stressed here that he just lost his judgment. How could you fine someone like you normally would for that when they are under this kind of stress?”
The Saints were set to move into a San Antonio city office building, but a couple of days ago it was damaged by electrical fire.
Their “home” games have included one at the Meadowlands, two at the Alamodome and two at LSU. They have two more left at LSU and one more in the Alamodome.
The Saints have played this season like their situation, like they live, with instability and inconsistency.
The players feel abandoned by the league. The league is frustrated with Saints owner Tom Benson. There is a prevalent feeling that Benson, rather than immediately and adequately solving logistical problems for his franchise, tried to use the disaster as a pathway to permanently move his team to Los Angeles or San Antonio.
Where might the Saints eventually find a home? No one has a clue.
All involved are frustrated.
“The hurricane was just the beginning of it,” Saints running back Fred McAfee said. “You never know what to expect. You expect the unexpected. And then, after that, the next thing tops the unexpected. A new precedent seems to be set every week.”
Saints players said they do not have hot tubs, cold tubs, saunas, things that every NFL club uses every day to recover from injuries. That competitive disadvantage pales in comparison, they said, to being forced by the league to play their home opener in Week 2 here against the Giants. Owners around the league agree the NFL works overtime to make competitive balance a central issue but, in effect, gave the Giants an extra home game.
“When 9/11 happened here, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani quickly walked the streets of the disaster,” McAfee said. “We still haven’t seen commissioner Paul Tagliabue.”
Tagliabue offered to visit with the team a day before its season opener. Haslett said it was not a good idea, that the team should focus on that game at Carolina. Tagliabue offered to meet with a couple of Saints players here before they played the Jets. The players insisted he meet with the entire team. Tagliabue declined, they said.
The Saints story is one of sorrow and hurt, and persistent gloom. A fractured team has been fractured further by bouncing around the country for home games.
Talks are ongoing between the Saints and the league to find solutions for 2006. This season is shot.
So is confidence in Benson from many people in New Orleans and in the league.
So is the players’ trust in the league and in their union.
And that sentiment was strong even after their rare victory.
“It’s been crazy,” Saints safety Mel Mitchell said. “Just because we play here and there and they put up banners that say ‘Saints’ does not mean it is home. Anytime you get on a plane for a home game, you are not at home. We’ve been at a big disadvantage in this league since the hurricane. We don’t see an end to it.”
Staff writer Thomas George can be reached at 303-820-1994 or tgeorge@denverpost.com.
