Over the Super Bowl weekend, the sentimental story was how the Saints had finally fulfilled their romantic return to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The ignored story was that Paul Tagliabue’s name was not even in the discussion when the Pro Football Hall of Fame selectors met.

Reading between the lines, those two stories are connected.

Tom Benson, the Saints’ owner, has insisted that “at no time did we look” to move to another city permanently after Katrina battered the Superdome and chased the team to San Antonio before the 2005 season. History suggests otherwise. And when the Saints came marching into the renovated Superdome for the 2006 season, Tagliabue, then the N.F.L. commissioner, was more responsible than anyone else.

Not so coincidentally, San Antonio is Benson’s home and the headquarters of his automobile empire. For several years before Katrina, he had complained about the Superdome and his Saints lease.

After a mid-October meeting with San Antonio officials, Mayor Phil Hardberger was “pretty comfortable in saying Benson” wanted to relocate the team there permanently. Benson had also dismissed the team executive Arnold Fielkow, who had talked about the Saints’ importance to Louisiana and said he wanted them to play home games in Baton Rouge, the state capital.