Featuring a potent offense led by quarterback Drew Brees, the Saints became national media darlings as they rebounded from the previous season’s adversity and defeated the Philadelphia Eagles in the postseason en route to their first NFC championship game, which they lost to the Chicago Bears. The team’s return to the playoffs in 2006 was especially notable: having been forced to play all their 2005 “home” games outside New Orleans because of the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina, the Saints came back to the Superdome in 2006 and posted a 10–6 record under first-year head coach Sean Payton. Then the postseason eluded the Saints for the following five years. Louis Rams for the franchise’s first playoff victory.

The Saints had a surprising turnaround in 2000, however, winning 10 games to qualify for the postseason and defeating the reigning Super Bowl champion St. New Orleans soon returned to mediocrity, losing at least 10 games in each season between 19. An unexpected star of those playoffs was placekicker Morten Andersen, who was named to six Pro Bowls in his 13 seasons with the team (1982–94) and would later go on to set the NFL record for most career points scored. In 1990 the team began a streak of three consecutive years of playoff berths and first-round postseason losses. New Orleans had winning records again in 19 but failed to appear in either postseason. However, the Saints badly lost their first postseason contest to the Minnesota Vikings. The Saints’ first winning season came in 1987, as a high-scoring offense led by quarterback Bobby Hebert and a stout defense starring linebackers Rickey Jackson and Sam Mills combined to propel the Saints to a 12–3 record and a playoff berth. The term Who Dat became a byname for the franchise among members of its fan base. The chant (“Who dat? Who dat? Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints?”) is rooted in both Southern black folk culture and in the minstrel “adaptation” of it.

In 1983 the team’s fans adopted a long-standing chant used at local high school and collegiate football games. Two notable figures to play for the Saints during that time were Archie Manning (father of future NFL quarterbacks Peyton Manning and Eli Manning), who was one of the most popular players in franchise history as quarterback of the team from 1971 to midway through the 1982 season, and Tom Dempsey, who kicked an NFL-record (tied in 1998) 63-yard game-winning field goal in 1970. Over those first decades the team garnered the somewhat affectionate nickname “the ’Aints” from their fans-some of whom attended home games at the Louisiana Superdome with bags over their heads in reaction to the franchise’s prolonged ineffectiveness. However, the futility of the team’s efforts was particularly pronounced, as it took 20 years for them to post their first winning season. Like most expansion teams, the Saints struggled in their first year in the NFL, losing 11 of their 14 games. The Saints began play in 1967 as an expansion franchise. SpaceNext50 Britannica presents SpaceNext50, From the race to the Moon to space stewardship, we explore a wide range of subjects that feed our curiosity about space!.Learn about the major environmental problems facing our planet and what can be done about them! Saving Earth Britannica Presents Earth’s To-Do List for the 21st Century.100 Women Britannica celebrates the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment, highlighting suffragists and history-making politicians.COVID-19 Portal While this global health crisis continues to evolve, it can be useful to look to past pandemics to better understand how to respond today.Student Portal Britannica is the ultimate student resource for key school subjects like history, government, literature, and more.This Time in History In these videos, find out what happened this month (or any month!) in history.#WTFact Videos In #WTFact Britannica shares some of the most bizarre facts we can find.Demystified Videos In Demystified, Britannica has all the answers to your burning questions.Britannica Classics Check out these retro videos from Encyclopedia Britannica’s archives.Britannica Explains In these videos, Britannica explains a variety of topics and answers frequently asked questions.

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