When Paulie returns home from a stressful hideaway from nosy police on "The Sopranos", his subconscious asks the question, "When my time comes, tell me -- will I stand up?" The Saints are returning home tonight from a stressful and unusually lengthy road trip (including one of the infamous non-home "home games" the league is so fond of handing them), and if they're not asking themselves that question -- will we stand up? -- their fans surely are.When the team left the Superdome for the last time, 43 whole days ago, they had put the finishing touches on a dominant win over the Raiders to even their record at 3-3. If they could leverage that win into success on the road, they could make a serious run in the NFC.
But a lot can happen in 43 days, and a lot did. The team went 2-2, continuing to be consistently inconsistent, making tonight's game essentially a must-win for playoff hopes. StarCaps entered the general sporting lexicon. Mike McKenzie and Charles Grant, among others, were put on the IR. They've used two kickers and three punters. And Drew Brees threw for 1,258 yards, which is more than Ryan Fizpatrick has thrown all year and not too far behind Kerry Collins' season total.
Some other things that have happened in the eternity since the Saints last played in the Superdome:
-- Twilight, Saw V, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, Quantum of Solace, and High School Musical 3 captivated theater-going individuals (yet I only trekked to the big screen once, for Synechdoche, New York).
-- One of the greatest drummers in the history of popular music (and my favorite), Mitch Mitchell, passed away.
-- Anquan Boldin recovered from a debacled face to catch six touchdowns.
-- The Dow Jones fell a lot.
-- Barack Obama was elected President.
-- The Phillies won the World Series for the first time since 1980.
-- The NFL handed out roughly $3.7 million in dance-related fines (note: very rough estimate).
-- Brett Favre fell from grace (again) and rose back up (again).
-- The Dow Jones went up some.
-- The Large Hadron Collider was debuted to the world, leading a bunch of amateur Hawkings to try to sound smart at the water cooler before feverishly toggling between Wikipedia and Dictionary.com to figure out what the hell was going on.
-- King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck of Bhutan was crowned.
-- Isiah Thomas intentionally or unintentionally overdosed while his old team won nine games, almost half their total under his leadership in 2007.
-- The Dow Jones fell again.
But, if you're one of those people who takes comfort in the fact that the more things change the more they stay the same, here's one thing that's remained constant since the Saints' last game in New Orleans: Jeremy Shockey's utter lack of production. So at least there's that.
