Some people are fans of the New Orleans Saints. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the New Orleans Saints. This 2015 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.

Your team: New Orleans Saints. WHO DAT!


I just want to reiterate how much I hate that fucking catchphrase. We are all DAT, Saints fans. We are not keeping a low profile. We are DAT team that say we gon beat dem Saints because dey are shit on defense and won’t stop turning the ball over. So by all means, New Orleans: ask us who we are. Point us out. We will gladly identify all your shortcomings. There’s no shame in saying you are confident about defeating a 7-9 team. That is common sense at work.

Your 2014 record: 7-9. See?

Your coach: Sean Payton, who sits in at WAY too many rock gigs.

Your cooler assistant coach: OWOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!


Now THIS man can go to all the concerts he likes. Rob Ryan IS Sammy Hagar. God, I love him. I want to retire to Key West with him.

Your quarterback: Drew Brees, who is the Mike & Mike of NFL quarterbacks. When Brees isn’t busy negating a 5,000-yard season by committing two dozen turnovers, he is busy whoring every possible shitty product out there: Welch’s fruit snacks, three-wheeled motorcycles, sham supplements, etc. He probably doesn’t even look at what he’s endorsing anymore.


BRAND MANAGER: Hey, Drew! Endorse this! (throws pile of money at him)

BREES: Sure! What is it?

BRAND MANAGER: Just shut up and read the copy!

BREES: I’ve been chewing Hitler-brand chewing gum my whole life, and I won’t stop now! I’M A HITLER GUY ALL THE WAY!


What’s new that sucks: So hey, that Junior Galette contract extension seemed to go over well! That’s $18 million in dead money for a beach-whipping loon who set fire to every last room in the joint on his way out. WHO DAT! WHO DAT SAY SEAN PAYTON IS AN ALKIE?!


You’re not gonna believe this, but the Redskins are the team that ended up signing Galette after he got cut. I’m as shocked as you are. And the best part was when Galette called the Redskins “functional” in comparison to his old team.

For the sake of this post, let’s assume that Junior Galette is NOT a crazy person and possible pathological liar. I know this is heavy lifting, but it’s worth it. According to Galette, the Saints are currently run by a drug addict coach and teapot-dictator QB, the No. 1 wideout is on his last legs, the team encourages infighting, the head coach moved the team’s training camp to West Virginia just to be closer to his girlfriend (can he not afford plane tickets?), and one of the o-linemen has the yips now because he caught his wife getting “raw-dogged” by another guy.


In a vacuum, I believe ALL of those things. Not only do I believe it, but I believe that the culture of New Orleans encourages such colorful dysfunction. Why, they wouldn’t be New Orleans without it! The tire fire is where they get all that lovable personality! HOO BOY NOW THASSA GUMBO! I KNOW IT LOOKS LIKE A MESS BUT WHEN WE THROW IT ALL IN THE POT YOU GET THE REAL NAWLINS FLAVOR THAT WAY GUMBO GUMBO GUMBO!

I haven’t even gotten to the real issue facing this team, which is that the Saints have become a bargaining chip in the burgeoning Benson family feud. It’s not totally clear if owner Tom Benson is mentally competent at the present moment (his daughter, suing for control of the franchise, told a court that Benson was not, and that he was manipulated by his current wife into giving her control of the team). And even if Benson IS senile, he’s somehow still the best candidate amonghis warring clan to maintain control of the team. That’s how bad it’s gotten in New Orleans. Success is beside the point now. The team won a Super Bowl, and now it can go ahead and be torn to shreds in a bitter family struggle that has no sympathetic participants. Did I mention that New Orleans built a statue for Benson even though he tried his damndest to move the team after Katrina?


Also, Jimmy Graham was traded. What the fuck? No, seriously: What the fuck? Do they expect Brandin Cooks to do everything? Brandin Cooks is four feet tall. The team also traded away guard Ben Grubbs and wideout Kenny Stills (apparently because Brees didn’t like them; maybe they didn’t like Welch’s fruit snacks). There are still too many backs. Brandon Browner has come to town to commit eight pass interference penalties per game. Darren Sharper got convicted of serial rape and is having his penis monitored. It’s a goddamn train wreck. The Saints are poised to fall off the face of the fucking Earth this season. They should send the 49ers flowers for having the more visible implosion.


What has always sucked: The defense is still awful and hasn’t been the same since the NFL banned their hit pool. I don’t care that Browner and Anthony Spencer are here now. When Rob Ryan is your D-coordinator, the goal of your “defense” is to luck into two turnovers per game so that you can barely hang on to win 35-30.

Not that Saints fans give a shit. These are, hands down, the most obnoxious fans in the NFL…


God, they suck. They are one-tenth as charming as they think they are, and they need a biblical disaster to really care about winning.


By the way, I have never been to New Orleans (I know, I know), but I’m getting tired of people trying to sell me on that city by pulling the Live Music card. “There’s live music in every bar!” Really? Then I’m not coming. Show me the bar where there is NO music. Show me the bar where everyone is horribly depressed and is drinking in pure fucking silence. That’s the bar for me. I don’t want a goddamn trumpet blasting in my ear when I’m trying to enjoy a beer. New Orleans is for sweaty, loud-mouthed assholes.

What might not suck: It’s the NFC South. Brees could throw 40 picks and this team would still cruise to a division title at 6-10. I’d bet money on that outcome.


Hear it from Saints fans!

Philip:

I once saw Rob Ryan at the Winn Dixie on Tchoup with an entire cart of cases of Diet Dr. Pepper.


Reverend Zoom:

In the past three years the Saints defense has gone from historically awful to suspiciously good and back to garbage. Do the fans care if they’ve addressed glaring issues in the secondary? Fuck no! My brother’s roommate tweeted a picture of Rob Ryan double fisting Coors Lites at the PoBoy Fest! “HE’S A LOCAL NOW!” And fuck Tom Benson. Fuck him with the stupid goddamn statue they erected in his honor. But only if he’s mentally competent. I want him to know why it’s being done.


Joshua:

When I told my wife I wanted to write a submission for Why Your Team Sucks, she asked if you were going to talk about Bountygate and then yelled for 20 minutes about how much Roger Goodell hates the Saints.


David:

I would like my QB to not be introduced to his kneecaps every passing play.

Jared:

We will NEVER win a game played outside.

Steve:

My best friend is a Saints fan, and every year I hear the same shit. He picks them to win the Super Bowl, and drafts all their players far too high in fantasy. Fuck him, I hate my best friend.

Marshall:

I have never wished for a career-ending injury on any player whether it was an asshole from the opposing team or an awful player from my own team. That all changed last year. Fuck you Corey White.

Jabari:

They ended the year with 5 straight home losses, and if they’d won one of those games, they’d have gone 8-8 and won the division.


Jessica:

The thing I hated the most wasn’t their 7 - 9 record... Or that they blew five fourth quarter leads last season Or that they went 3 - 3 in one of the very worst NFL divisions that has ever existed Or that they introduced an obnoxious “3rd down siren” in the Superdome that 1) sounded like getting stabbed in the face; and 2) was always on due to Rob Ryan’s spectacularly bad defense Or that they signed Junior Galette to a massive long-term contract only for him to unload a metric ton of baggage including two allegations of domestic assault Or that they forgot to sign or draft any #2 cornerbacks whatsoever last year after Champ Bailey’s corpse didn’t work out Or that they forgot to sign or draft any receivers whatsoever this year after trading Jimmy Graham and Kenny Stills. Or the way I grind my teeth every time Drew Brees plays a wooden robot in dad jeans for all the worst endorsements in the NFL - This includes shilling for a motorized tricycle that Gob Bluth would be embarrassed to ride. No, I think my lowest moment was when the Saints were down by two touchdowns in the fourth quarter against the Buccaneers in Week 17 and somehow won, thereby gift-wrapping a number one pick to a division rival and taking themselves out of the top ten. Literally can’t win for losing.


Mark:

Benson’s wife has been sued more times than General Motors. Fuck this team.

Carey:

Each and every hackneyed Katrina reference makes me want to wage eternal jihad on every sportscaster who has ever made mention of how the Saints gave New Orleans a reason to come back. Fuck that and let me state for the record that Drew Brees and Sean Payton are not the sole salvation of the Gulf Coast. Also, is it heretical to admit this but I actually miss the years when we were terrible because at least the fans had a sense of humor (gallows humor, but still humor) about football and about themselves. After a few winning seasons, the entire franchise and their fanbase is practically intolerable.


Brett:

Maybe the fact that they have $15-million in dead cap money dedicated to a guy who whips women on the beach with a belt? A guy who everyone in the organization knew was a ticking human time bomb ready to detonate at any moment when they signed him to a contract extension. Oh, also, the food in the Superdome fucking SUUUUCKS. New Orleans is the one of the world’s great food cities and the food options available in the Superdome are on par with the food options available at a Little League field in Anytown, USA on any given summer night. Even the food offered in the fancy, higher-priced “club” seats is merely edible. The food in that part of the stadium is largely catered by a mediocre local chain restaurant. And I had to run to the bathroom to violently expel fluids out of my ass 2-3 times per hour for 24 hours the last time I had one of the Superdome’s celebrated “Dome Dogs.” I shit you not (pun intended).


Frank:

I’ve lived in New Orleans now for a year and a half, and I can say, without a doubt that Saints fans ARE THE WORST. I will see multiple Darren Sharper jerseys on Sundays this year. Also, Marques Colston’s Wikipedia page ends after the 2013 season, just like his career.


Jeff:

The most exciting thing to happen in the Superdome in past 5 years was Wrestlemania. I’m tired of defending that mole-face interception machine Drew Brees.


Mac:

Notwithstanding the ruling of the Orleans Parish District Court, our owner has been legally incompetent for nigh on 20 years. His ungrateful kids’ attorney just failed to play the trump card to prove it: Mike Ditka.


Max:

Drew Brees has slowly morphed into a shorter, birth-marked version of Brett Favre. I would have to take off my shoes and my pants to count up the number of backbreaking interceptions he has thrown the last few years and yet no one seems to call him on it ever.


Bill:

The best possible outcome of the Benson courtroom clusterfuck was that the team stayed in the hands of the almost-certainly demented old billionaire who forced one of our nation’s poorest cities into giving away nearly priceless downtown real estate so he wouldn’t move the team to Texas. We made a statue of that dickhead. As Drew Brees enters his twilight years we’re totally fucked. Brees could kill and eat a baby on local tv and we would throw a parade for him. We’re going to keep him around until he’s just a pile of parts tweeting out ads for his Jimmy John’s franchises.


Evan:

Between the Saints implosion and the fact that LSU hasn’t had a good quarterback for more than one season since black-and-white TV, the Pelicans are now my favorite sports team.


Liz:

Drew Brees is my favorite athlete ever. He has said he’s interested in going into politics when he retires. I’m not emotionally prepared for Drew Brees to retire and I’m certainly not prepared to start hating him once I hear about his political positions.


Submissions for the 2015 NFL previews are now closed. Next up: The San Diego Chargers.