Who Dat gonna cheer for Atlanta?

Published 6:09 am Sunday, February 5, 2017

Reliable sources are reporting that there’s a big game today, probably Super Bowl LI, and — double-checking here one last time — nope, the Saints ain’t in it.

Probably an oversight … mostly on the defensive side.

But that’s not the worst of it.

All but one of the previous Super Bowls have trudged through without the Who Dats with noticeable harm to the republic.

But what is it with the big games this year?

Those who can’t get excited just about the commercials or the bean dip need a rooting interest beyond the $5 squares you bought at the corner bar.

And once again our fair state is being thrown a malicious curveball.

Oh, the dilemma.

For most of the land, it’s pretty simple.

One of the key elements, in fact, of “Making America Great Again” is to somehow change the narrative of the Super Bowl to one in which the New England #*$%#@ Patriots don’t seem to win it every blasted year.

This evidently is one thing this much-divided and angry nation can agree on these days.

Please, like in our lifetime, bring down the Patriots.

Nationwide surveys show it’s near unanimous outside the immediate environs of New England.

Odd that a team so rooted in America’s original rise to greatness — it’s the Patriots, after all, Paul Revere, Nathan Hale, John Hancock, all those wild and crazy guys — would elicit such universal ire.

But the New England Patriots brought it on themselves.

Too good. Too Arrogant. Too Belichick and way, way too much perfect, perfect Tom Brady who already has everything and whose Hollywood pretty-boy look never ages and, well, he is probably a nice guy to boot — probably way too nice.

So it’s their own fault.

They must, in a word, be stopped.

America, land of the free, home of the brave, cries out for it in unison, often rhyming, sometimes marching in the streets.

And then there’s Louisiana, land of the go-cup, home of the, uh, Saints.

So it gets complicated.

Helping rid the football landscape of New England means openly rooting for the Patriots’ opponent today, normally not a problem.

But this time it’s the Falcons — yes, the Atlanta Falcons, i.e., Dirty Birds. And with the Falcons, it’s personal for Saints fans.

The Falcons were born a year before New Orleans got into the NFL, so Saints fans have been taught since birth to despise everything about Atlanta, even changing planes.

So for the second time in a month Louisiana is in quite the pickle. For the college national championship game, it was the dilemma of pulling for the SEC or more naturally pulling against Alabama and Nick Saban. This is a tough one, too.

For the most part, the Falcons, largely ignored in most precincts, have been all too easy to hate for Saints fans.

If they weren’t hanging a 62-7 number on the Aints — and chirping about it all the way — for a while there they were dropping annual Hail Marys right square in the fleur-de-lis.

And there was that 1991 wild-card playoff game in the Superdome when Deion Sanders cackled while openly taunting what everybody thought was a good Saints team.

Beloved Saints like Bobby Hebert and Morten Andersen were kidnapped by the dastardly Falcons and held hostage in Atlanta in mid-career.

Mostly, it was the officials’ fault. Anyway, Hebert later escaped.

By the way, Saban’s mentor — yes, The Process once involved a mentor for Saban — was none other than Belichick. So you could make the argument that Belichick, and by extension, the Patriots, is responsible for much of the football angst in Louisiana this decade.

Drew Brees has been something of an antidote in recent years, but old prejudices die hard.

Hating the Falcons comes as naturally to a Saints fan as a good Who Dat.

But there’s no time for that today.

Some things are big enough to put aside petty differences — OK, admittedly there’s nothing petty about them — for the common good.

Nobody said you had to go buy a Falcons jersey. Nobody is suggesting you learn the Dirty Bird handshake.

Just swallow hard. Just this once.

You can be anti-Patriots without be pro-Falcons, but research shows it’s far more effective rooting for something than against a perceived evil.

Need something to pull for?

There are three former LSU players on the Falcons.

They didn’t ask to be Falcons. It’s the NFL. They had no choice. Linebacker Deion Jones and cornerback Jalen Collins were drafted, defensive end Tyson Jackson was traded.

Jones’ family in New Orleans, lifelong Saints fans, almost disowned him when they got the news. But the Falcons pay him well, and they cheered even when he returned an interception for a touchdown against the Saints this year.

Join them in the spirit of forgiveness.

Just this once.

l

Scooter Hobbs covers LSU

athletics. Email him at

shobbs@americanpress.com