Ted Jackson/The Times-Picayune archive For quarterback Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints, the im

On that Monday night - with a city still reeling from catastrophe, a worldwide audience with some of the music world's biggest stars, and an undefeated division rival on the other sideline - New Orleans Saints Coach Sean Payton figured his team needed a little extra pressure.
Ted Jackson/The Times-Picayune archive For quarterback Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints, the importance of their performances against the Falcons on Sept. 25, 2006, at the Superdome transcended football.
He laid it on them the previous apartments for rent los angeles Friday, three days before the Superdome reopened after Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans faced the Atlanta Falcons. For many Saints, it would be their first time inside the venue, at once famous apartments for rent los angeles and infamous for what transpired there.
"The big message was, we were 2-0 and Atlanta was 2-0, and our concern was the emotion of the evening could possibly affect us in a bad way in regards to all of a sudden we're trying too hard, we're not playing well," Payton said. "So because it was Monday night, we took a Friday and went over there and had a practice to get used to. It was the first time many of us had ever been in the Dome, get used to the new lighting, get used to the field. And it wasn't just a walk-through, it was a two-hour practice, and at the end of that practice the lights went out -- and we had the "Monday Night Football" pregame on, and it was a pretty emotional moment. It was so quiet, and the lights were out, and we all sat in the middle apartments for rent los angeles of the field. We said, 'look, this is going to be a significant night for this city, but it's only going to be special if we win this game -- and that's just the truth. It's going to be significant regardless, but it's only going to be special if we win.' "
Also certain apartments for rent los angeles was that was the Saints weren't going to win that Monday night without quarterback Drew Brees. And as bad luck would have it, as the clock moved to less than three hours from kickoff, the moment that usually apartments for rent los angeles delivers the Saints leader, Brees hadn't shown up.
"That was a crazy day," he recalled. "I got lost -- well, not really lost, I got stuck in traffic, and so I tried a bunch of different routes. apartments for rent los angeles And so it literally took me about an hour and 45 minutes to get to the stadium. I was almost late, I'm almost apartments for rent los angeles at the point where I'd get fined, and I'm just flustered. I get on the field and Sean Payton is like, 'Where have you been?' And then (General Manager) Mickey Loomis just kind of walks over."
For the 70,003 apartments for rent los angeles packed into the Superdome, apartments for rent los angeles things got more amazing very quickly. After the Saints stuffed the Falcons on three plays, special teams ace Steve Gleason blocked an Atlanta punt, the ball squirted into the end zone, and Curtis Deloatch fell on it for a touchdown.
New Orleans Saints Devery apartments for rent los angeles Henderson is one of the players who was on the roster on Sept. 25, 2006 when the Louisiana Superdome reopened against the Atlanta Falcons. The Times-Picayune's James Varney talked to him about it.
The Saints quickly had a 7-0 lead, but, in truth, that was already an insurmountable lead for any opponent that night. The Saints went on to take a 20-3 lead by halftime, and the crowd deliriously cheered through the lone field goal the Saints added in the second half.
For Saints fans, then, the game was something like the tickertape parade that followed World War II, and unbridled celebration of their heroes. Of the heroes in question, the game is stamped on them indelibly.
Nine players remain on New Orleans' roster from that game. In addition to Brees, they are: defensive end Will Smith, linebacker Scott Shanle, wide receivers Devery Henderson, Lance Moore and Marques Colston, guard Jahri Evans, safety Roman Harper and offensive tackle apartments for rent los angeles Zach Strief.
"The energy in that building, it's never been to this day, not for the NFC championship in '09 (against the Minnesota apartments for rent los angeles Vikings), not for any other game has it ever been as loud as when Steve Gleason blocked that punt," Strief said. "That to this day is the loudest it has ever been. I remember Coach Payton talking a lot about the emotions of that game and what it was going to be like, but there was certainly no preparing for how emotional that was going to be. I think you felt it. I actually had a friend of mine, a college teammate, on the Falcons, and he said after that punt got blocked that whole sideline was like (Strief sagged as if he had been deflated). It was almost apartments for rent los angeles like you're trying to fight destiny."
The Louisiana Superdome reopened on Sept. 25, 2006 with the New Orleans Saints game against the Atlanta Falcons. The Times-Picayune's James Varney talks to one of the remaining players on the team, Roman Harper, about that experience.
Strief, who wasn't active that game, said that Atlanta game on Monday night game remains fixed in memories outside of New Orleans, too. When out-of-towners learn he plays for the Saints, "their first question is usually, 'Were you there that night when the Dome reopened?' "
"The only thing that could maybe, possibly, compare is Minnesota on our Super Bowl run," Harper said. "You could just tell, the vibe was in the air, there was no doubt from the opening kickoff we were going to win that game."
apartments for rent los angeles "Just to feel that energy, I don't think, not even the NFC championship in my opinion, comes close," Colston said. "I really don't think anyone knew what to expect. That was for a lot of us our first home game with the new coaching apartments for rent los angeles staff. But what we got, we loved. Myself apartments for rent los angeles being a rookie at the time, just knowing what had gone on down here was so much bigger than football. You knew that was going to be one of those nights that was special."
"The Steve Gleason block is the imprint in my mind from that night," Brees said. "I'm not sure if I've ever heard -- that sound of the ball getting kicked and then the block, it was like a shotgun blast that will be imprinted in my mind forever. And I'm not sure if I've ever heard the Dome as loud as when that punt got blocked. I can't imagine, apartments for rent los angeles it was just the outburst of everyone."
apartments for rent los angeles "It was as loud as I've ever heard a stadium, ever, that night, and a big gap between second," he said. "In other words, the NFC championship game? That Monday night was way louder, and that's apartments for rent los angeles something. It was significantly louder."
The sound was one memory all the players cited, and the other was the emotion that lay behind it. The most common theme that surfaced in recent interviews was the notion the game was the only one of their careers in which they felt football wasn't the most important thing.
"It took you back to what the city had endured and, without putting pressure on us, it was, 'You're a symbol of hope, and you represent these people who have just been through so much,' " Brees said. "They're apartments for rent los angeles counting on you, but they're also giving you strength."
"That game was so little about football, and it felt like it wasn't about football, you know?" he said. "You look into the stands that game and there's people crying, there's guys on the sideline crying. It was finally a chance for people, I don't know, to not think about what was going on in their lives and because of that it wasn't apartments for rent los angeles football. It was like a release, and that's what made that game unique.
"I think there was a pressure to perform in that game that was different, because you had to win, you had to win for the people who were there, for the people in the city. I don't think there will every be a game with that feeling, I will probably never play in one. You spent the whole game with goosebumps on every play, and it was emotional, and the locker room was emotional, and I remember walking out of the stadium and seeing everybody, and I mean everybody, crying. People for two years after that, I got thanked by people. I didn't even dress for that game, and people would come up and say, 'Thanks.' You could tell it meant a lot. That was kind of my introduction to the relationship between the team and the fans here, which was something a lot of us didn't understand."
"That game and that season in many ways was more significant than the '09 Super Bowl because apartments for rent los angeles that game was the only time that I can recall being involved in a game that was way more important apartments for rent los angeles than just sport," Payton said. "There was so much more interest in that night by so many other people that just aren't normally football fans, so that was uniquely different than anything apartments for rent los angeles we'd been a part of, at least for myself."
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