All Saints Day: New Orleans celebrates 54 years in the NFL

The New Orleans Saints were born on November 1, 1966. The National Football League awarded New Orleans with the 16th professional football franchise.

The New Orleans Saints were born on November 1, 1966, in a Catholic dominant city, on All Saints' Day.  The National Football League awarded New Orleans with the 16th professional football franchise.

Commissioner Pete Rozelle and businessman Dave Dixon had many behind-the-scenes challenges and hurdles before the city was granted a team by the NFL owners.  John W. Mecom and family become the owners and the rest is history.

Credit: Mike Detillier

Saints News Network's contributor, Mike Detillier, shared a series on how "How New Orleans Got an NFL Team" in June.  

In 2003, then WWL Radio Sports Director, Buddy Diliberto, spoke with me about obtaining as much information as possible on how New Orleans got an NFL team. Diliberto first covered the beginning of getting a professional football team in the newspaper business and then covered the New Orleans Saints on television and the radio.   Mike Detillier

Credit: New Orleans Saints

Detillier continued to write, "the most vital piece to get the New Orleans Saints was Dave Dixon. Dixon worked behind the scenes to place a team in New Orleans, and later he became the Father of the Louisiana Superdome."

Dixon told Detillier in several interviews the push for the city to get an NFL team began in 1959.

“The big push to land a professional football team came in 1959 and a committee was formed, The Louisiana Professional Sports, Inc., a group to help land an NFL exhibition game at City Park Stadium and in 1960 that game between the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers drew 16,500 folks. NFL preseason games were not drawing big crowds, even in NFL cities. So I formed a second group, New Orleans Football Club, Inc., and I wanted to bring to New Orleans a professional football team."

In the spring of 1960, Pete Rozelle became the new NFL Commissioner.  Dixon began a highly important relationship with Rozelle which led to New Orleans landing a football team.

"Louisiana's Representative Hale Boggs and Senator Russell Long politically tag-teamed to get the NFL to award New Orleans a professional football team. Sports and politics worked together. The Louisiana guys came up with the push/legislation to finalize the AFL/NFL merger, and New Orleans got an NFL team," tweeted Mike Detillier about the Saints in the NFL.

The Saints are a storied franchised. The abundance of winning may not be at the forefront of everyone's minds when thinking of the team. Still, the character and characters associated with the organization over the years are mythical. 

In the team's 54 seasons, the Saints have a record of 388–452–5 overall (375–438–5 in the regular season, and 9–12 in the postseason, and one Super Bowl title).

New Orleans will be in Chicago as Mrs. Benson's organization celebrates 54 years in existence. Hopefully, Sean Payton and the team will walk off of Soldier Field with a win before meeting Tom Brady and the Buccanneers in Week 9 for a primetime battle in Tampa.