I remember reading the Saints’ schedule at the beginning of the year. It’s soft-serve ice cream. This was the weakest schedule I’ve ever seen them with.

I’m not going to blame Ed Hochuli for a miserably-officiated game. The Saints beat themselves. I’m not going to blame all the turnovers or Martin Gramatica. Antoine Winfield was the best player out there tonight, if you subscribe to the theory that the MVP of a game should come from the team that won.

What gets me is just how much of the joy I seem to be missing from sports.

When Reggie Bush took back his first punt, I was screaming at Pinback in Google Chat. He almost broke the next punt, and I flipped my shit when he took the punt after that back for a touchdown. Because, this was going to be a special game for Saints fans. This was going to be the game we describe for years as, “The game where they fumbled four times and were saved by Reggie Bush.”

Of course, it wasn’t that. Bush is an amazing player who doesn’t fit the mold of a normal running back or wide reciever. I guess he’s become my favorite player because, unlike Brees or Deuce, I never had to hear that they were horrible “busts” for years on end, by terrible sportswriters. (An aside – the terrible sportswriter known as Rich Tosches has started having Yahoo delete the mails that Pinback writes that clearly explain how horrible he is. Delete this, Tosches: YOU’RE WORTHLESS.) To me, when you take the fact that the guy is rich, he’s a young kid that had most of the press in this country saying how much he sucked in 2007. That stirs sympathy in me, I suppose.

So when he took the second punt back, to give the Saints the lead, I thought that this was going to be one of those games I’d always remember, fondly. It isn’t, of course. It won’t be. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Saints beat the Vikings. No matter how shitty they are, the Vikes find a way. It’s be admirable if it didn’t make me sick.

A few years ago, the Saints needed one win in their final three games to go to the playoffs. They were playing three of the worst teams in the NFL to finish up – Minnesota, Cincinatti and Carolina. The Vikes were hopeless that season. They scored late and normally, a team would have kicked the extra point to put the game into overtime. Instead, head coach Mike Tice realized he had nothing to lose, so he went for two.

Daunte Culpepper took the snap. He fumbled the ball. He scooped it up. He ran into the end zone. Two points. Game over.

(The Saints would then lose to the Bengals and Panthers, end up 9-7 with a three-game losing streak, and miss the 2002 playoffs.)

That’s the kind of football I’ve tortured myself with.

WHEN DOES IT EVER GET BETTER?

Not tonight, that’s for damn sure. I honestly didn’t feel bad after the Broncos loss. Now I feel like I’ve wasted, what, 16 weeks x 30 years = 480 football weeks, or 9 years? 9 years of my life, worrying about this nonsense?

Okay, maybe it didn’t ruin my life when I was *five*, but still. I need a new hobby. Something.