Why I’m Excited For the 2010 NFL Season

Summer in New Orleans, as you probably know, is not the most comfortable experience.
Other cities in the United States are hot, but the heat in sub-tropic New Orleans is so soupy that you break into a sweat picking up the newspaper from your front lawn. The effect is basically the exact seasonal reverse of the New England Hot Stove tradition; people huddle around air conditioning, think about fall and talk about the Saints.
Since the collective Lombardi Gras hangover wore off sometime around the middle of March, every move (and there haven’t been many) Mickey Loomis and company have made has been thoroughly discussed and debated throughout the city.
While there were a few divisive transactions – the Jammal Brown trade chiefly among them – the biggest problem for Saints fans this summer was that simply isn’t a lot to discuss when your team wins the Super Bowl and then keeps the majority of that team intact. When the backup quarterback situation is one of your team's biggest concerns, your team is probably pretty good. The draft came and went, and the city of New Orleans was left to discuss Patrick Ramsey vs. Chase Daniel for months on end.

With Thursday night’s kickoff, we can finally put an end to all of these quasi-artificial debates and get back to the "us vs. them" tribalism that makes football in America such a big deal.
You don’t have to be familiar with Patrick Robinson’s 40-yard dash time or Jo-Lonn Dunbar’s grasp of Gregg Williams’ defensive schemes to get drunk at your neighborhood bar and cheer for Brett Favre injuries. No matter how nuanced your appreciation of the bottomless intricacies of the sport, everybody loves the completely unnuanced reaction the entire city gives with every Drew Brees touchdown and Darren Sharper intercption.
Controversies real and/or imagined obviously will pop up over the course of the 16-game season, and it will give us here at Blog Blitz plenty of material to riff about. All of that will happen in good time. Right now, I just can’t wait to yell "Who Dat" at random strangers on Canal Street.
It’s been a long summer, and the city is ready for its football.