Last week was only the second Sunday of this 2024 NFL season, a mountain of games and weeks and months away from Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans February 9, 2025, what is to be a record-tying 11th Super Bowl in New Orleans (Miami also has 11) and the eighth in the Superdome.
But when the New Orleans Saints and Dallas Cowboys play, it’s an early Super Sunday in these parts.
And so it was Sunday, and so it was not that surprising when the preacher let loose with some football talk to a congregation secretly intent on making it home by midway through the first quarter, what with kickoff being at noon and all.
(Saints and Cowboys fans always pray for a 3:30 p.m. kickoff but … not all prayers are answered with a ‘yes.’ This sets us up for another column on patience, faith, and hope. But for now, the lesson is ‘acceptance.’ Anyways… )
The sermon was the first in what is to be a series on the book of Philippians, one of several epistles, or letters, that the apostle Paul wrote 2,000-plus years ago, give or take, to young churches, the football equivalent of expansion teams in the early days of Christianity.
The letter was addressed to the young church at Philippi on the Aegean Sea and began, the preacher said, with a word of grace “to all the Saints in Philippi…”
“Notice,” our pastor said, “Paul didn’t write ‘to all the Cowboys in Philippi…’”
Boom. And all the Saints fans said, “Amen.”
And all the Cowboys fans thought, “Boooooo!” This proved to be good practice, because the guys with the star on their helmets got smoked by the Saints Sunday in Arlington’s AT&T Stadium, 44-19.
Old news if you’re a Cowboys fan, still music to the ears of Saints lovers.
And the new joke is that the star on a Dallas helmet isn’t a logo: it’s a one-star rating.
Mercy.
Whether that was preaching or prophecy or a little of both, the preacher’s prelude to Sunday’s game was something to smile about before a game that, although it’s only mid-September, presented in its conclusion a two-headed question:
Did the Saints go marching in? Or did the Cowboys go marching out?
Way too early to tell. But this much we know.
After two games, the Saints are No. 1 in scoring (45.5 points per game), No. 4 in total offense (405.5 yards per game), No. 4 in scoring defense (14.5 ppg) and No. 8 in total defense (273 ypg).
Glory!
Meanwhile the Cowboys were favored by a touchdown and lost by … 25 points? 26? Something like that.
Speaking of 26, ESPN picked the Saints to finish 26 in the 32-team league. The Cowboys are picked 6th.
All that said, it’s a long, long way to the NFC Championship Game. The NFL season is a brutal slugfest, a tedious journey at best. The Cowboys got smoked at San Francisco 42-10 in early October last season, and still won seven of their next eight to finish 12-5, a tie for best in the NFC.
Green Bay then cleaned their clock in the playoffs, 48-32. It is tough being a Cowboys fan these past few (25-plus) years, one would imagine.
Meanwhile a Saints fan can hang his or her helmet of hope on the 44 points scored Sunday and what looked like a defense that could make the playoffs, something New Orleans hasn’t done since 2020.
And as summer turns to autumn, fans of either team could always fall back on Philippians. It’s only four short chapters — but not short on the subject of joy, no matter the circumstances.
Contact Teddy at teddy@latech.edu
