By Giavanna X
They Call Us Crazy. We Call It Loyalty.
They call us crazy.
They call us delusional.
Every losing season, the question comes back.
“Why do you still go?”
The answer is simple.
Because we’re Lifers.
I’m one of them.
This Didn’t Start With a Lombardi
My Saints fandom didn’t begin with Drew Brees.
It didn’t start with Sean Payton.
It didn’t arrive with a Super Bowl parade.
No it started in 1978.
I was four years old.
I climbed concrete steps in the Superdome.
And I held my father’s hand while he believed—quietly but stubbornly—that one day this team would give New Orleans something to celebrate.
That belief mattered.
The Years That Made Us
I lived the Bum Phillips years.
I survived the brown paper bag era.
Embarrassment became part of the uniform.
I danced through the Benson boogie days.
I cried in Miami in 2010.
Yes Iwatched our Saints become Super Bowl champions.
Then came Bountygate.
The fallout followed.
So did the skepticism.
Through every rise and fall, I stayed.
That’s what a Lifer does.
Saints Fandom Is Inherited
Saints fandom isn’t convenient.
You don’t pick it up when it’s trendy.
You inherit it.
It’s cultural.
It’s communal.
And it’s stitched into Sundays in New Orleans.
As a child, my section was filled with long-time season holders.
They were players’ tickets.
They were family tickets.
The adults talked strategy.
The kids talked cotton candy and school.
What mattered was togetherness.
Those seats held generations.
When the Dome Changed
In 2021, renovations shifted everything.
Entire sections disappeared.
Lifelong seatmates were scattered.
Familiar faces vanished.
People I’d known my entire life were suddenly gone.
That loss hurt.
Because Saints fandom isn’t just about suffering together.
It’s about celebrating together too.
The Fly-In Lifer
There’s now a single seat next to mine.
In it sits Tosia Bias.
Her dedication rivals any fan I know.
I call her The Fly-In Lifer.
Tosia is from Houston.
She lives in Atlanta.
Yes—Atlanta.
Home of the Falcons.
She hates them with a passion that borders on poetry.
And yet, she flies into New Orleans for every single home game.
She lands Sunday morning.
Heads straight to the Dome.
Watches the game.
Then she races back to the airport.
She catches the last flight out.
Every. Home. Game.
That’s not casual fandom.
And that’s devotion.
That’s a Lifer.
The Record Isn’t the Point
There’s a lot of talk right now.
The Saints are “hard to watch.”
The front office gets blamed.
Draft picks get debated.
Coaching calls get dissected.
Rebuilds dominate the conversation.
And yes—mistakes have been made.
No Lifer denies that.
But outsiders miss the point.
Being in the Superdome isn’t about the record.
The Heartbeat of the City
When the Saints win, the city explodes.
When they lose, the city still gathers.
Bars fill.
Homes light up.
Arguments turn into laughter.
The Saints don’t just play football.
They touch the soul of New Orleans.
This city understands resilience.
It understands joy and pain.
It understands getting back up.
That’s why we identify so deeply with this team.
Cause we don’t abandon what we love when it struggles.
We stand closer.
We Are Still Here
Saints fans aren’t a dying breed.
We’re the ones who stayed when it was ugly.
We’re the ones who flew home anyway.
We raised children in the Dome.
We wore black and gold without permission from the scoreboard.
And we believed when belief made no sense.
We are Lifers.
And as long as there’s a heartbeat in New Orleans,
there will be Saints fans in the Superdome—
standing, shouting, believing.
Because there’s no place like home.
And there’s no place like New Orleans.
Win or lose—
Who Dat forever.