David “Doc” Mancina has had a lot of rotten Mondays in his 69 years.
A Metairie native and a Saints fan all his life, Mancina said he's always taken losses hard. He's suffered through plenty of them through the decades, both from inside the Superdome and in front of his TV. But this year, though Kellen Moore's Saints are a dismal 1-7, it's not hitting the same way.
“Used to be that it would wreck my Mondays. And sometimes my Tuesdays,” Mancina said, laughing. “But it doesn’t anymore.”
What gives?
“Maybe I’m getting old," he said. Or maybe I’m just beat up.”
NO.saintsfans.adv
Insensative Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans cheer as those around them suffer, at the Caesars Superdome on Sunday, Oct. 26. (Photo by Doug MacCash,NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
As Saints fans trudge through a season that at times has felt like a jail sentence, Mancina isn't alone in feeling a little numb to it all.
Interviews with the team's faithful over the past week offered a sense of resignation, even if most were taking it in stride.
Moore's first year as head coach has come with a steady beat of pounding losses, missed opportunities and questions about how long the rebuilding process might take. Starting quarterback Spencer Rattler was taken out in the third quarter on Sunday against the Buccaneers and rookie Tyler Shough has been elevated to the starting role for this Sunday's game against the Rams in Los Angeles, but there's not much hope that a turnaround is in the works for this season.
So, most Saints fans say they're going to grin and bear it, and try to eke out fun during tailgates and other parts of perennial fandom, even if the games are hard to watch.
“It’s been tough,” said Larry Rolling, a longtime season ticket holder known as “The Sign Guy,” for his pithy, hand-painted signs and ability to get on TV from his front row seat. "I think everyone is just tired."
Rolling’s sign for the last home game offered a sense of how far fans' expectations have been lowered. He scrawled “Rattled” — one he knew could work no matter what happened on the field. Maybe the Bucs would be "Rattled" by a superior display of offensive acumen from Rattler and the sign maker would prove prescient. Instead, Rattler was benched.
"Rattled" still worked.
Old memories
For longtime fans, the last few seasons are bringing back dark, sometimes repressed, memories of empty Dome seats and fans with bags over their heads. There were bad teams spread across the decades, capped by — but certainly not limited to — the disastrous 1-15 season of 1980.
Then came the turnaround in 2006. Sean Payton arrived. So did Drew Brees, and with hi,m winning seasons, a Super Bowl victory and a string of runs deep into the postseason. The success. The swagger. It was all so intoxicating.
NO.saintsfans.adv
A shortage of Saints tailgaters on Sunday, Oct. 26, allowed Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans to infiltrate a high-visibility spot at the corner of Poydras Street and Claiborne Avenue -- a clear taunting violation if there ever was one. (Photo by Doug MacCash,NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
Now, some fans liken these more recent losing seasons to a hangover, one that comes with a reminder of how great the party was.
“Maybe we thought it would never end,” said Mancina, noting that the Super Bowl in 2010 seems like eons ago. “It’s like we’re back to the '60s.”
Diedre Hayes, a licensed clinical social worker and Tulane University professor with a degree in psychology and a doctorate in social work, said it's not uncommon for some fans to experience the stages of grief as they watch their favorite teams struggle.
"We have anger with the team, we get sad, we're in denial about how bad they might be," she said.
Asked Friday afternoon what fans can take away from the season so far, Moore said he's stressed to the team that winning is a process, and that if they trust the process, the results will follow.
"I feel like the thing that I love and appreciate is our guys battle each and every week," he said. "And I think if you do that, and you trust the process, just keep focusing on the process and doing it the right way, the good things happen."
'We come out either way'
Sunday, Oct. 26, began with cloudy skies and persistent rain. So even though the sun burst through by noon like Taysom Hill hitting the line in his prime, the tailgating crowd around the Dome featured mostly diehards.
Hope for victory was slim. As Slidell Saints fan Roy Provenzano put it, “the Saints are in dark times right now.”
Still, Provenzano was in a gaggle of Who Dats who clustered around their converted school bus in a Loyola Avenue parking lot as they had for two decades. The team was then 1-6, and only hours away from being 1-7, but Provenzano and his Slidellians remained faithful. “We come out either way, we come out to have a good time, we’ve got a good group of people, but obviously the vibe is a little less fun with less people.”
Asked to diagnose the Saints’ current torpor, Provenzano skipped the mixture of youthful inexperience and athletic obsolescence that seems to plague the players and went straight to the top.
“I’m just a guy,” he said, “but I think the upper management has been a little different (lately) or maybe the same for too long. I think we need change.”
New Orleans Saints
A spectator yawns while a bag-headed fan looks on in disbelief as the Saints lose yet another game during its 1980 season. The team went 1-15 that year, beating only the 4-12 New York Jets in the penultimate game, saving itself from a winless season. (AP Photo/Bill Haber) ORG XMIT: APHS453841 Bill Haber
Most tailgaters seemed to philosophically accept the cycles that affect every football team, years of glory — or the real chance of it — followed by decline and the dreaded "rebuilding."
Tailgater Ronnie Deslatte said he’s been going to Saints games since they started at Tulane Stadium. He believes the team's performance can influence the tenor of the region.
“When they win,” he said, “the city is just all happy-go-lucky and everything’s good. Even when you go to work, everything’s good. But when they lose, it ain’t good.”
Deslatte remembers the so-called “Aints” era of the 1970s, when the team seemed similarly hopeless. But, he said, he did not resort to disguising himself with a paper bag mask as some disdainful fans did.
Deslatte’s tailgating crew occupied one of the forlorn patches of land along Poydras Street. Nearby, a cadre of insufferably cheery Tampa Bay fans had erected their own tailgating headquarters at the intersection of Poydras and Caliborne Avenue, a clear taunting infraction if there ever was one.
The jerseys of visiting teams have lately covered larger areas in the Dome stands. New Orleans, after all, is a fabulous road trip, and tickets to the Saints games are pretty easy to find these days.
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The Bless You Boys superfans cavort at the entrance to the Ceasars Superdome before the Saints were mercilessly martyred by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday, Oct. 26. (Photo by Doug MacCash,NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
Bless You Boys
The Bless You Boys, a trio of Saints superfans who dress as Who Dat pontiffs, looked especially peculiar on Sunday, having donned pink bath robes, presumably in honor of breast cancer awareness month. Before the game, they cavorted with fans and posed for pictures outside of Gate A.
Paradoxically, the three pink popes were a sign of normalcy. Their joyous, theatrical brand of fandom had survived the Saints’ forlorn performance.
They continued to cheer with gusto from their front row seats.
Asked to describe the current mood of Saints fans, Dijai Smith, one of the Bless You Boys, used the term “sketchy.”
“A lot of people are doubting,” Smith said. But, he vowed, the forsaken state of affairs “doesn’t change my heart for the team.”
NO.brianhenry.adv
Brian ‘Signature Saint’ Henry, a beyond-devoted collector of New Orleans Saints players’ autographs, achieved a milestone on June 11, when he added his 100th tattoo, the signature of Chuck Commiskey, to his permanent collection. On the same day, Henry added former Saints Brad Edelman, Larry Hardy, and Emmanuel Sanders. Tattoos by Dominic Sgro. Mural by Muck Rock. (Photos by Doug MacCash NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
It's just a game
Loyalty aside, the ruinous season has even the most die-hard Who Dats thinking about their checking accounts, including Brian “Signature Saint” Henry, who has managed to get 171 Saints player autographs tattooed on his body. “My season tickets are $1,900,” he said.
But here are ways to cope, said Hayes, the Tulane professor.
Try to have some empathy for the players — after all, "They want to win as bad as we do" — and realize that as fans, we have no control over the teams' performance.
Oh, and this: "You have to acknowledge it's a game," she said.
For many Saints fans, the cliche rings true — hope does spring eternal. Moore is still in the honeymoon stage, and, as Rolling the sign guy noted, other teams have had quick turnarounds.
The Doc, for one, says he'll never lose hope.
"I tell ya, I bleed black and gold," he said.
Will he get to witness another Super Bowl? Who knows.
"I didn't expect to get one in my lifetime," he laughed.
Staff writer Luke Johnson contributed to this story.