Moving On

Chris Mortensen of ESPN is reporting today that the Saints have played their last game in New Orleans. According to league sources, the Saints will return to San Antonio for the 2006 season, with a preferred permanent relocation to Los Angeles after that. New Orleans is unlikely to get a guaranteed expansion team, such as the promise made to Cleveland when the Browns became the Baltimore Ravens in 1996. A sports consultant claims that New Orleans is unlikely to ever be awarded an expansion team, and anyway Mortensen's report says that the league wouldn't consider expansion for another 10 to 15 years.

Clearly, Tom Benson, the owner, wants to move the team, and has tried to in the past. The league has now had ample time to extend the city of New Orleans a vote of confidence, and has failed to do so. I am officially done with them. Unless and until the Saints return to New Orleans as the home team, I won't be following them.

On the one hand, the whole thing just makes me sad, but on the other, I'm happy to have my Sunday afternoons back.