Bernard Fernandez: It takes a longtime Saints fan to appreciate this victory

DURING THE lead-up to Super Bowl XLIV, sports writers and columnists from around the world offered their thoughts as to what it meant for the New Orleans Saints, the NFL's poster boys for ineptitude since the franchise's birth in 1967 - and literal orphans of the storm during the Hurricane Katrina-ravaged 2005 season - to defy their sorry history and finally make it to the Big Game.

Most were only theorizing. To understand the depth of despair that Saints fans have endured for the vast majority of the team's 43-year existence, you had to be there at the beginning.

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.

And who could forget when the Saints made history in 1979 by taking Texas placekicker/punter Russell Erxleben? Erxleben, one of the last of the straight-on kickers, soon revealed himself to be incapable of booting field goals if the ball wasn't set on a tee, as was then allowed by the NCAA.

Few complained when the Saints, then coached by Bum Phillips, selected Heisman Trophy-winning running back George Rogers with the first pick in the 1981 draft. The South Carolina product had some good seasons, but the player who went second to the New York Giants, North Carolina linebacker Lawrence Taylor, became maybe the most disruptive defensive force in league history.

Even when the Saints got something indisputably right, it turned out wrong. Fans celebrated when the Saints grabbed Ole Miss quarterback Archie Manning with the second overall pick in 1971. But by the time he played the last of his 10-plus seasons in New Orleans, Manning, much more mobile than either of his future NFL-quarterback sons, was the most-sacked passer in league history, a potential Pro Football Hall of Fame talent who became, well, the patron saint of pro football's lost souls. During one particularly miserable seven-season stretch, Manning had seven offensive coordinators.

When the Saints were excellent offensively in the late 1970s, with Manning, Chuck Muncie and Tony Galbreath at running back, Wes Chandler at wide receiver and Henry Childs at tight end, their defense was Swiss cheese. When they finally fixed the defense some years later, with the "Dome Patrol" of Pro Bowl linebackers Sam Mills, Rickey Jackson, Pat Swilling and Vaughn Johnson, the offense had regressed to Pop Warner League quality.

The late Buddy Diliberto, a longtime radio sportscaster in New Orleans, agonized along with his listeners with each defeat.

"When you go to heaven after you die, tell St. Peter you're a Saints fan," Diliberto used to lament. "He'll say, 'Come on in. I don't care what else you've done, you've suffered enough.' " *

Send e-mail to fernanb@phillynews.com.