saints-rams

Warning: sports entry ahead. Non-sports fans: nothing to see here, keep moving on.
Monday night will likely be the highlight of the sports year for me: my beloved New Orleans Saints take on their hated (recent) rival, the St. Louis Rams. Some background: Last year, the Rams were the defending Super Bowl champion and looked unstoppable. The Saints were coming off a 3-13 season and weren’t expected to go anywhere. The week before the two teams played for the first time, the Saints’ starting quarterback, Jeff Blake, was injured and lost for the season. His backup, Aaron Brooks, had never started a game in the NFL before.
Anyway, the Saints went into St. Louis and whooped ’em, 31-24. They ended up beating the Rams for the division title, then beat the Rams again in the first round of the playoffs in an amazing game, 31-28. (The Saints almost blew a 31-7 lead with 11 minutes left to play; it was the first win in Saints playoff history and the last time I cried with joy. There, I admitted it.)
This year, the Rams were again supposed to be much better than the Saints — and, in fact, they are: they’re the best football team in the world. But in October, when the Rams were 6-0 and on top of the world, the Saints whooped ’em again, 34-31, coming back from being down 24-6 in the second half and winning on a field goal with one second left.
The Saints host the Rams for the last time this year on Monday Night Football. The Saints are switching divisions next year, so it’ll be the last critical game of this rivalry for a while. As you can tell by scores like 31-24, 31-28, and 34-31, it’s always a great game when these guys play. The Rams are a very precise, amazing passing team; their specialty is the 80-yard touchdown pass. The Saints are a sloppy, smashmouth football team that’s aggressive, quick, and brutal. Plus, they hate each other. The war of words has already begun:
Saints WR Joe Horn: “The Rams know what time it is. We have their number.”
Rams DL Tyoka Jackson: “I know exactly what time it is. And we’re going to see if we have a nice clock to clean when we get down there.”
Rams DE Chidi Ahanotu: “It’s time to shut these guys up. It’s like this is the only game they live for, for some reason. And all the rest of the games they lay eggs.”
Horn: “We’ve won three out of the last four so Anakakoonachoo or whatever his name is, I don’t know why he would say something like that. Who’s Ananookagoo?”
If anybody wants to come over and cheer my boys on to victory Monday night, lemme know.