As a native New Orleanian, I was. And, until Sunday evening, I wondered when the plague of locusts, boils, frogs and the Mississippi River turning to blood every fall would finally end for longtime residents of my hometown.
The Saints' first owner was John Mecom Jr., son of a Texas oil millionaire, who'd show up for training camp and demand that the coaches allow him to run pass patterns. Sad. Even sadder was the realization that Mecom looked nearly as good as some of the players under contract.
Maybe that's because instead of taking young guys with upsides in the expansion draft, the Saints went for faded, big-name veterans, such as Paul Hornung (who immediately retired and never played a game with the team), Jim Taylor (played one season, rushed for 390 yards and two touchdowns) and Gary Cuozzo (the Baltimore Colts' backup quarterback behind Johnny Unitas for whom the Saints gave up the first overall pick in the draft; he was beaten out by Billy Kilmer, whose next tight spiral will be his first).
Mecom, being from Houston, home to the NASA space program, hired one of his heroes, former astronaut Dick Gordon, as the Saints' executive vice president in 1972, a post he held for 5 years. So how does being an astronaut qualify someone to run an NFL team? It doesn't, as it turned out.
Few teams whiffed as badly or as often on No. 1 draft picks as the Saints. In 1974, they selected Ohio State linebacker Rick Middleton 13th overall because of his eye-popping measurables at the combine; Denver, with the following pick, took three-time Ohio State All-America linebacker Randy Gradishar. Too bad the larger, faster Middleton wasn't nearly as good as Gradishar at playing football.
