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It’s hard to put into words what happened Sunday. As a long-time Saints fan, I still find it hard to believe what happened in Miami, but I’ll try to explain using a day and long night in New Orleans pre-celebrating, watching the game and celebrating for real. O, the celebration …

Driving in with good buddy George, we saw signs of what Katrina wrought on us all. They’re tearing down the westbound lanes of the old twin spans, with the new bridge partially in service already. But enough of the downer stuff, Sunday was a day to party.

George, a native New Orleanian, got us a primo, free parking spot in the quarter. We walked to St. Louis Cathedral and immediately saw a little parade getting started beside Jackson Square. That’s where we heard our first “Who Dat!”.

Mass was sprinkled with Saints winning the Super Bowl references. Monsignor Kern welcomed a packed house, filled with lots of lots of black-and-gold jerseys, Saints sweatshirts and T-shirts, for the 9 a.m. service (yeah, I worked until midnight Saturday, then was up at 6, leaving George’s at 7 to make Mass), saying he appreciated everyone being there to pray for “what certainly will be a Saints victory.” He said he also expected everyone back next Sunday for prayers of thanksgiving. The monsignor said the Holy Father had given them special dispensation to depart from the called-for green vestments and they were wearing black and gold. He said they’d also been given permission to fly the Saints flag out front instead of the papal colors.

The large crowd created a little bit of a traffic jam during communion, but everybody snaked their way through the intertwined lines and made it through. The Monsignor finished Mass, with the recessional hymn ended with a baroque-tinged “When the Saints Go Marching In” riff by the coolest church organist in the world. During that jam, we heard a cheer from the back.

Monsignor Kern had taken off his cassock to reveal his Brees jersey. That was by far the least sacrilegious use of Brees’s name and likeness for the day.

Sunday was the day after the city’s mayoral election, and our first bar of the day, Harry’s Corner, where their opinion of the outgoing mayor was clear.

We saw a beautiful lady in her finest Saints garb, the first of many homemade outfits we’d see during the day. (My dark bar photography skills do not do justice to the beadwork and finery she’d crafted.)

Pat and the lovely Suzy had joined us for Mass, and we took a Bloody Mary (yes, 10:30 Bloody Marys is how NOLA rolls) for the road for lunch. I punched a New Orleans ticket that I’d somehow never punched before …

We were second in line at about 10:40 for the 11 o’clock opening. We saw the first of a million dogs …

… and before the restaurant opened, the line had gotten long.

Port of Call means two things: great hamburgers and, um, interesting drinks. Yes to both, please. The burger was too delicious to take pictures of, and the I’m pretty sure there was a potato under the biggest scoop of sour cream I’d ever seen. (Please don’t tell our trainer about that.) And the Neptune’s Monsoon was delightful. I didn’t get to see the patented six-bottle simultaneous pour because the crowd was too thick around the bar already.

Then, off to the Quarter. We saw Mohawk Brees …

… an alligator chomping on Peyton Manning …

… inspirational signs …

… and insulting signs (I’m assuming the spelling of “BUTT” is a reference to Peyton’s long-ago misstep at Tennessee) …

… and there’s proof that I was there.

Sunday was the Krewe of Barkus parade, so there were tons of dogs out in costume. This was, far and away, our favorite. It’s a good thing that dogs can’t hire lawyers, or else this owner would owe any fortune he might have for theft of dignity.

They said he was dressed as a Saintsation. I’ll let feminsts and men who are pigs argue that editorial statement among themselves.

It was still early afternoon, but Pat and I found ourselves in the gutter already …

… much to the delight of this little one.

A guy in the parade had a New Orleans Top 10 sign:
1. Black and Gold, Baby!
2. We have the best parades.
3. Second lines.
4. Beautiful homes
5. The Mardi Gras Indians.
and …

There were more beautiful ladies …

… and a beautiful old martyred lady, Joan of Arc, supporting the Saints.

We also found the most dedicated New Orleans Saints fans.

See the ol’ timey Saints helmets. See the containers under them? Urns. Ashes. Fans.

They hang out at Molly’s at the Market, where we also saw Coach Sean Payton before he caught the Concorde down to Miami.

I think the cocktail in his hand was courage juice for his onside kick.

(Molly’s was also the place I saw what I considered the first real omen portending Saints victory. The line for the women’s room had one, maybe two in it; the men’s line was 10 or 12 deep. The world turned upside down. Heck, that might be a sign of the apocalypse.)

There were more reminders of Katrina …

… and then the sacrilege …

… and the “real” thing …

I mean the Saints’ savior, not the real Savior. I didn’t get a shot from close up, but dude looked like Drew.

I don’t have any photos from the game. We went back to the hotel to watch the game. We knew we’d have beer, snacks and, most importantly, a clean restroom.

The five other people in the room will never believe that I was less crazy than watching the NFC championship game with Carla in our living room, but I swear I was. Carla’s stuck with me for the rest of our lives; the friends might bail on me if I did all the stuff I did two weeks prior.

The highlights:

A quiet worry-filled first quarter.

Some of the best hotel room coaching you’ll ever hear for the four-down failure at the Colts goal-line, followed by what at first looked like questionable clock management punctuated by a morale-lifting Garrett “Money” Hartley field goal.

The best run of the night, George’s halftime gallop to Krystals just down the street for 20 gut bombs. Lucky gut bombs, my friends. When fortunes waned in the second half, I threw myself on the remaining grenades and turned the tide single-handedly.

The Onside Kick, or Where Sean Payton Sealed New Orleans Immortality. This may have been my most unhinged, when my lip-reading eyes found the official on the far right side of the pile first say “White ball,” several seconds before the referee made it official, seconds filled by me jumping up and down screaming, “He said white ball! He said white ball!”

Shortly thereafter, I tweaked my calf muscle helping escort Pierre Thomas into the end zone on his screen pass run. I sprinted across the hotel room as he was sprinting in. I woulda laid out any Colts fan in the room, too.

There was the commercial spent on bended knees, waiting to see if Payton had challenged the two-point conversion call.

There was sheer pandemonium when Tracy Porter, I’ll say it again, Tracy Porter picked off that Manning pass and returned it for a touchdown.

And there was great relief when the Colts’ fourth-down attempt failed at the Saints goal-line, followed immediately by the breaking-out of the ceremonial heater.

Forty-some-odd seconds later, I opened the door into the hotel hallway and saw the masses pouring out of rooms heading for the elevator. We joined them after one last bathroom break, waiting on a couple elevator cars to come before finally finding one with enough room for us and another room to overstuff. I’ve never been more relieved as I was for an elevator to reach the bottom safely, what with the bouncing and shouting and celebrating and rapping.

Here’s one picture of the opening minute or so of our time on Bourbon Street when there was actually room to move and think.

After that, we were pretty much pushed against the hotel wall, trying to make our way to the corner to get over to Royal.

We eventually made it, many high-fives and Who Dats to strangers laters. We wound up in the Carousel Bar at the famed Hotel Monteleone.

We found some room there, a friendly waitress who took away my cigar and I was able to rally with some other friends.

Former Sun Herald co-worker Richard:

And my friends Tammy and Trice, along with her cousin, John:

We also found Breesus Christ, a jolly man issuing special dispensations who had a handler trying to keep away the riff-raff, again not exactly what Jesus stands for, forgive us.

After a bit, we decided to trek across the Quarter heading back to Molly’s. Royal was much calmer, like Bourbon on a normal weekend night, so way more crowded than normal but still navigable. There were random musical groups attracting dancing fans …

… a flying pig …

… and a celebrating statue behind St. Louis Cathedral.

The crowds thinned out as we left the Cathedral area, but when we got back down on Decatur at Molly’s, there was another huge crowd of folks in a whole ‘nother party.

There was even a woman standing on a parked car twirling these big balls of fire from chains off each hand.

Her fire-globes (not a euphemism) were coming what looked like inches from the neighboring building’s sidewalk overhang, but the Saints kept everybody safe. Even the brass band that tried to get into Molly’s.

We stayed out of the madhouse on the way back to the hotel, stopping at Tujague’s for a quiet drink in the bar before seeing another crowd of people with an impromptu band.

I smelled pizza on the way back and Tammy, Trice and I stopped for a pie. No photos, which was a theme for me and food. You put food down in front of me and it gets eaten.

We said our goodbyes and I was in the room and in bed, I mean on the floor, by 2 o’clock. Somehow, I was back away at 7, as our room came to live earlier than I would have ever imagined. For Saturday and Sunday night, with a late-night work shift and the celebration, I totalled nine hours of sleep. I walked a foot off the ground Monday, so I guess it didn’t really matter.

The Times-Picayune was selling newspapers out of the back of a pick-up truck on Canal.

We were at Cafe du Monde just in time to beat the rush. Again, no picture of food, just the aftermath.

As we were leaving, there was a three-piece band setting up in front of the cafe. I would have liked to have heard this “backstage” prayer.

They might have mentioned Buddy D. and all the departed Saints fans who didn’t get to see the game from this plane.

We’ve waited a long time for this day, and it’s sweeter than anybody could have imagined. The victory parade is still going on right now. And I’m not sure it will end until the next time the Superdome is in use for the Black and Gold.

Yeah, been a little since I last posted. Nanowrimo halted what little posting I’d been doing here, then I quit on Nanowrimo not far into it. On to bigger and better things, I guess.

(And I won’t talk about the Saints, yet. Saturday’s still a little too painful, and the worry’s kicked in overdrive.)

It’s that time of year to start thinking about the most important event of the year: Jazz Fest. The schedule came out last week and here’s who I will be planning to see:

Weekend One, or the short list

This is the short list just because when I marked up the schedules, there are fewer bands I want to see. There is one of my Jazz Fest favorites, probably a must-see, but I’ll have to see how the individual days play out across the two weekends. (There are fewer TBAs than usual, so this list oughta stand up pretty well.) The bands:

• My Morning Jacket: Never seen them and haven’t really heard a lot of their stuff, but what I’ve heard I’ve liked a lot. If was actually still buying (or stealing) music, they’d be a band I’d want to see.
• Darius Rucker: I know, I know, he’s playing country now. And I don’t have a lot of use for modern country these days. But I saw Hootie and Blowfish back at the Music Farm in Charleston, S.C., back before they went huge, so it would be interesting to hear him now. He’s an act that if there’s nobody else I want to see that day will probably get skipped. No offense, Hootie.
• The Black Crowes: Never seen them and always wanted to, even moreso if Luther Dickinson’s playing with them.
• George Clinton and Parliament/Funkadelic: C’mon, you’re kidding. You need an explanation?
• Cowboy Mouth: A Jazz Fest staple, like crawfish bread. Although I’ll admit that if there’s nobody else playing that day, I won’t make a special trip to see them. (Speaking of crawfish bread, this list is a pretty good one for must-have foods.)
• New Orleans Klezmer All Stars: One of my favorite Jazz Fest bands. In fact, I’ve never seen them play anywhere else. They usually play at the Fais Do-Do stage. I love klezmer music, especially that trill clarinet, and these guys are outstanding and funky. That’s right, funky Jew music.

That’s it for the main folks I’d like to see. There are others on the big, long list, such as Tab Benoit, but he’s a guy who gets circled quickly on a day I’m going but doesn’t bring me out by himself.

Weekend Two, or book time in NOLA this weekend if you want to see me for sure

Lots more acts I’d like to see playing the second weekend:

• Pearl Jam: I’ll admit, I haven’t bought any of their stuff in a long time. I’ve never seen them live, but I’ll be sure to be there to see them. I mean, it’s Pearl Jam, and they’ll be worth what I’m sure will be an uber-crowded day.
• Steve Martin with the Steep Canyon Rangers: Yep, Steve Martin playing at Jazz Fest. Any other banjo player and I’m sure he’d be at Fais Do-Do. Steve Martin will probably get a little bigger stage.
• Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue: Super talented, super energetic, super young. Go see him and get your face blown off.
• Kermit Ruffins & the Barbecue Swingers: It won’t have the same intimacy as when he plays his Thursday night gig at Vaughan’s in the Bywater, but Kermit’s awesome.
• New Leviathan Oriental Foxtrot Orchestra: So eclectic as to not even have their own Web site, these guys play old-timey jazz and ragtime bands. Oh yeah, and there’s a theramin player.
• J.Monque’D Blues Band: Yeah, he doesn’t have a site, either. But a more unique bluesman you won’t find.

Others I’ll be circling quickly on my cubes: Sonny Landreth, Eric Lindell, CoCo Robicheaux & the Swamp Monsters, Driskill Mountain Boys.

Who are you gonna see?

The Saints just pounded the Giants, the team many thought the best in the NFC if not the whole league. New Orleans is good, really good, but Mr. Dark Cloud will throw out this tidbit for you: Beating the best team is not the same as being the best team.

Wait, what? It’s pretty obvious if you think what would happen if the Rams beat the Giants. No way they are the best team in the league. And no way am I comparing the Saints to the Rams. (St. Louis is so bad it looks at the bye week as a potential win.)

There’s just more to being the best team than winning one game, and mainly because of matchups. The Saints matched up well with the Giants, obviously. But would the result have been the same in blustery Giants Stadium? Nobody knows, but the Saints better keep winning to avoid playing outside in the playoffs. (Yes, it’s officially OK in my book to start talking playoffs.)

The Saints may find another team they don’t match up as well against, too. Miami with the Wildcat? Atlanta with Matt Ryan and Tony Gonzalez?

I’ll tell you what it will take to beat the Saints: Another great offense and a tennis-minded defense. Tennis-minded? Yep, tennis. New Orleans has turned the game of football into a tennis match, where the key is holding and breaking serve. The Giants could not break serve/force a punt/create a turnover against the Saints. Gregg Williams defense, on the other hand, did that to the Giants. They gave up 27 points, but got early breaks in serve to coast to victory.

So are the Saints the best team in the NFL? It sure seems that way. Here’s one measure of their success this season: They have outscored their opponents by 99 points in five games. Buffalo (93), Cleveland (69), Tennessee (84), Oakland (62), Kansas City (98), Washington (79), Tampa Bay (89) and St. Louis (oh boy, 54) have scored that many points, period, in six games. Carolina (85) and Denver (99) have only played five games (which makes the Broncos 5-0 start all the more impressive … is that the defense that matches up with the Saints?).

New Orleans has proven it can win by scoring a bunch in the air and controlling the ball with the run. The Saints’ biggest questions left are on special teams, which have been inconsistent.

I’m sure they’ll still be No. 1 on most power polls Monday morning. And that’s fine by me.

Haven’t written anything for awhile, so I’ll just repurpose an entry in a friend’s humorous State Fair Haiku contest:

State fairs have livestock
They can be fun to watch but
Watch your step my friend

It would have to be: “Have you ever seen Caddyshack?”

If I were representing Biloxi, Miss., I doubt seriously I’d use the “Hello, Dalai” line, as Memphis Mayor Pro Tem Myron Lowery did Tuesday. It’s hacky, to begin with, but it also forgets the fact that you’re representing 650,000-or-so Memphians. It’s tough to do without launching into a generic welcoming speech, but politicians should be good communicators. I think I could come up with something a little better than, “Hello, Dalai.”

The Commercial Appeal story gives a couple of quotes from the Dalai Lama’s comments. I liked this one:

The Dalai Lama briefly offered part of his philosophy, pointing to his heart as he said, “If you keep here fear, anger, jealously, everything appears suspicious.”

Spending long stretches of your life pondering such things makes for an intimidating conversation partner, but I’m sure the Dalai Lama has spoken with a wide enough range of humanity to be able to tote the ball in whatever you wanted to talk about. Perhaps not the Saints’ chances this year, but deeper topics.

What would I say to the Dalai Lama given 30 minutes or so? It would be interesting to hear him talk about being a refugee. Katrina created many refugees, and while I would not technically be one of them, I’ve experienced that sense of loss and confusion. I’d have to do a lot more homework about Buddhism, but discussing the similarities and differences between it and Christianity would be on the list. (Did I say 30 minutes? I meant 30 hours.) And I’d like to talk with him about self-improvement, specifically resolving some bitterness I’ve been pained by. He writes,” May I examine my mind in all actions and as soon as a negative state occurs, since it endangers myself and others, may I firmly face and avert it,” and I’d like to explore that with him to help figure things out.

Oh, and if I had 30 hours, I’d ask him if he wanted to spend 98 minutes to watch Caddyshack.

We were driving back to the Coast after celebrating Nephew Will’s 15th birthday yesterday and I turned on the postgame show on WWL (Sports department motto: Where the English Language Goes to Die). I was not the least bit surprised to hear, in what I believe was the second player interview from the locker room to hear the WWL sideline guy ask a convoluted question of, I believe, Darren Sharper that included an assumption of making the playoffs.

I point this out not to belittle the interviewer. I’ve asked some doozies in my day, I know. (Amazing when you open your mouth with what seems like a perfectly formed question, how many forks in the road you can take the wrong turn on.) It’s to point out how insanely high the hopes are in New Orleans and the Gulf South for the 2009 New Orleans Saints.

But how good are the Saints really? Well, offensively, they’re scary good. They were scary good most of 2008, but I’ll point out they had some struggles on the road in the NFC South. And I’ll also point out that the Saints played only one of the top nine scoring defenses in the NFL last year. (Washington held Brees to 216 yards passing and won 29-24.) Matchups in the NFL are everything, and we’ll know a lot more about the offense three games from now. After traveling to Buffalo, the Saints get the two New York teams — Jets before the bye, Giants after.

Nobody really doubted the offense, but if you trusted the Saints defense headed into the season, you could find employment as a financial regulator. (What? You say things are OK? Everything’s on the up and up on your ledger? OK by me!) Two games in, you could argue the defense is actually better than it looks statistically. The Lions feasted on some field position served up by special teams and turnovers to put up more points than indicated. The Eagles got a lot of garbage time yardage. The most encouraging statistic the Saints can point to is turnovers. New Orleans is tied for first in the NFL with six interceptions. Last year, the Saints had 15.

I’ll point out that the Saints have feasted on teams giving quarterbacks their first NFL starts (Stafford and Kolb). All you can do is beat the team in front of you, but they’ll play some good QBs before the end of the season (Ryan twice, Brady). Get back with me then.

I’ll also point out this doozy: I wanted to embed some video of DeSean Jackson’s 71-yard touchdown reception against the Saints, but the NFL doesn’t appear to like doing this. So just tell me if what happens 23 seconds into this video looks familiar.

The NFL’s very nature exaggerates highs and lows. Translate a 16-game season into baseball’s 162-game calendar and a two-game winning streak is like winning 20 in a row, while a three-game losing streak is Washington Nationals territory. Sharper had a good response when asked his playoff question. He said all that winning the first two games guarantees is that you can go 2-14.

Here’s hoping the Saints don’t have a 140-game losing streak. I don’t think Saints Country could take it.

Trying to catch up with my “Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me” listening tonight, they played Not My Job with Rev Run, formerly known as DJ Run from Run DMC. He’s got an MTV “reality” series called “Run’s House” these days, but I’m old enough to remember when his old rap group brought the genre to the masses with “Walk This Way.”

(Warning: Multiple parenthetical ramblings follow … I haven’t gotten my Carl Kasell voice mail recording yet. He’s on vacation this month, so I hope to get it sometime in October. I’ll let everyone know when there will be Straight-To-Voice-Mail hours on my cell phone so you can hear. No, I won’t ruin the surprise and tell you before then. … Quotation marks around “reality”? Really? Uh, yes. I’ll save you the geek-speak of the “Observer effect” in physics which talks about how observing some phenomenon you change that very phenomenon. Say you put a room temperature thermometer in a glass of hot water. The relative coolness of the thermometer changes the very temperature of the liquid it’s supposed to be measuring. Stick a bunch of cameras around people and the last thing you see is reality, hence the quotation marks. Guess I didn’t actually save the geek-speak. Sorry.)

Back then, it was just rap music. The hip-hop label hadn’t been widely adopted, but I was listening to more of that than kind of music than I do now. Actually, it would probably be better labeled as R&B, but that’s why I hate labels. It was really just black music. I was playing basketball in those days and was the designated driver for the guys on the team who lived in the projects out on 28th Street. I was listening to Prince, Ready For The World, The Time, etc. His Royal Purple Badness still occupies a high spot on my Top 25 musical ballot. Very high. I still enjoy “Prince Radio” on Pandora.

These days, my musical taste has stultified. I don’t hear a ton of new stuff in any genre. Just doesn’t happen. I still like the stuff I’ve liked before, just don’t pick up any new stuff, which is my loss. So I’ve heard of the Angry Black Man who upstaged Sweet Young White Girl this week, but couldn’t name a song either raps/sings/produces/writes. I wish I didn’t know what the president thought about ABM, but the labeling and stereotyping don’t seem to be getting us very far. ABM and SYWG, conservative and liberal, birther wingnut and socialist commie.

Perhaps a little reaching across the aisle might help, like when Steven Tyler busts through the wall in “Walk This Way,” or when a skinny white kid gave a bunch of black guys a ride home.

Can’t hurt.

Here’s are crappy things about Hurricane Katrina:

1. I lost my house. Yeah, pretty crappy. It happened to lots of us. It’s no fun. I’ve got a slab in West Gulfport that’s not much fun to look at. It’s a hassle to pay taxes on, keep the grass knocked down. I should probably sell the lot, but the house was my grandmother’s and there’s an emotional attachment. I think selling it would help me, and my folks. Rip the bandage off finally. But I haven’t seriously entertained that thought.
2. I’ve had nine different addresses (I think) since then. Luckily, I think I can unpack my boxes and stay awhile at this place. At least, once we get the floors down.
3. My parents lived in a FEMA trailer for far too long. I’m thankful I never did it. It would have helped some on the monetary front, but I could afford not to. Without even counting formaldehyde, that’s a crappy way to live.
4. We’ve all spent the last four years looking at Katrina+1 week, Katrina+1 month, Katrina+1 year, etc. Carla and I have moved from Gulfport to Biloxi, and I don’t drive along U.S. 90 as much as I used to. I think there’s gotta be significant psychological scarring from that daily “Oh, remember when that was there?” as you pass vacant lot after vacant lot.
5. There’s the psychological scarring. My mom grew up in Gulfport. Her family lost five houses in Hurricane Camille in 1969. (We got off easy this time, losing two outright and “only” gutting one other. Yay.) I was 2 years old when it hit, so I could never judge it, but everybody always said my grandmother was never the same after Camille. I know I’m not the same as I was before Katrina. I’m quicker to anger, for which I’m sorry to all. I’m working on that, but not always doing very well.

Here is a good thing about Hurricane Katrina:

1. I’ve got lots of good friends. I got a lot of stuff after the storm from friends I know and didn’t know I had. Carla doesn’t understand the emotional attachment to clothing from the Katrina Closet at work sent by folks around the country, but it’s hard for me to give it away. I know I should. I had friends send me care packages of clothes and music. I stayed with a bunch of different people immediately after the storm. So many great friends for whom I’ll never be able to do enough to repay them.

Here is a great thing about Hurricane Katrina:

1. Carla. I never would have met if it wasn’t for the storm. My schedule changed at work, my circle of friends shifted slightly and *bang* I met her. She makes me happy. I think I make her happy (except for that area where her neatness meets my sloppiness, but I’ve made serious progress there).I was asked moments after the paper won the Pulitzer about my feelings. That was a hard day for me. We earned that award, and I’ve never been more proud professionally. But winning that award was not worth it. Not worth the pain I suffered, much less worth the pain multiplied by the hundreds of thousands affected by the storm, many who lost way more than I did. Lives lost, houses destroyed, possessions lost, minds affected. Not worth it at all.But, if somebody told me on Aug. 28, 2005, that Hurricane Katrina would wipe out my home and only my home, nobody else’s, that my friends and family would be OK physically, but I’d get to meet Carla. Would I take that deal?In a heartbeat. Something great did come from Katrina, and it helps make living with all the crap easier.

Just got done reading the latest Sports Illustrated (I’m a little behind on my magazine reading), the one with Marc Buoniconti on the cover.

What struck my writing nerve, however, isn’t one of the articles. Instead, it’s a players poll. The question asked which major leaguer gets the least out of his talent. Survey says!

Four of them are current or former Washington Nationals: No. 1 Wily Mo Pena, No. 2 Daniel Cabrera, No. 3 Elijah Dukes and No. 5 Mike MacDougal. That’s really remarkable. It would not be surprising, however, when you consider whose fingerprints are on three of the four.

Jim Bowden.

Luckily, an FBI probe greased the skids for his exit from Washington. From a million miles away, Bowden always seemed a huckster pedaling miracle cures masquerading as a general manager. He assembled one of the worst bullpens in major league history (I don’t have stats to back it up, but I’ll send you copies of the doctor bills from prolonged head shaking-induced neck sprain). He cornered the market on corner outfielders heading into camp, apparently forgetting the need for, you know, an actual center fielder.

He to collect his former Cincinnati Reds players, which yielded Pena. He’s a guy Bowden brought to Washington. Not there any more. He brought in Cabrera. Not there now. He brought in Dukes, who is with the Nationals and putting up “stellar” numbers. Bowden gets a pass on MacDougal, but is a guy brought in after one of the bullpen purges brought on by his incompetence. (Mike isn’t short for Michael, by the way. It’s short for Meiklejohn, by the way. Never heard that name before, but you can’t blame a person for their own name unless it’s Esteban Ochocinco.)

I’ve written far more than I expected to get to my main point. I read that poll and thought, Man, I’d rather have a bunch of gritty, hustling overachievers than ubertalented but underachieving guys. Then I said, Check that. I’ve lived that nightmare, too.

Mike Ditka got enough rope in New Orleans to hang himself. He liked to draft gritty, hustling overachievers and his first draft in 1997 is proof: Guard Chris Naeole, DB Rob Kelly, DE Jared Tomich, RB Troy Davis, QB Danny Wuerffel, WR Keith Poole, TE Nicky Savoie.

Ditka bet a reporter that Wuerffel would be picked in the top 100, knowing he had pick No. 99 and would take him there, a humongous reach. (The Saints signed Jake Delhomme was an undrafted free agent, proving to be a far better selection than Wuerffel. Wuerffel is a world-class individual, but a bad NFL quarterback.) The rest of that class was underwhelming, save Chris Naeole. But Naeole was another reach, a stunning waste of a 10th overall pick for a guard, who probably would have been available where they picked Kelly, who probably would have been available when they picked Tomich, etc. (Picks 11 and 12? Warrick Dunn and Tony Gonzalez.)

So, which would I rather have. Team of gritty, hustling overachievers or ubertalented but underachieving guys. Trick answer: Neither. Nothing good comes of either approach. You can’t win without talent, but you can’t win without high achievers.

Force me to pick between Bowden and Ditka and I’ll change allegiance.