Saints Rival Patriots With Win Streak

SAN ANTONIO - The New Orleans Saints won their season opener on the road in Carolina last Sunday, and for a franchise whose city is still underwater, 1-0 has never meant so much.

The Saints are the NFL's displaced team this season, practicing in San Antonio and splitting "home" games between the Alamodome there and LSU's Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge — a schedule assembled in days after Hurricane Katrina wrecked the Superdome's roof and scattered the organization.

Sunday's 23-20 win over the Panthers was the kind the Saints usually lose — they blew a lead, then won it late on a 47-yard kick — and the sideline celebration at the end looked more like January than September.

"We wanted to give people something to feel good about," quarterback Aaron Brooks said after the game, in which several players had family still unaccounted for. "We're playing for a whole region now."

The league has wrapped the team in its embrace. Commissioner Paul Tagliabue pledged the Saints will remain in New Orleans — pushing back against speculation the club would use the storm to bolt — and the players' union and owners agreed to fast-track assistance for displaced staff.

On the field, the schedule is a logistics puzzle: three games in San Antonio, four at LSU, and the rest on the road. Players live in a San Antonio hotel; their families are scattered from Houston to Atlanta.

The Saints were a 8-8 disappointment last year under Jim Haslett, and this season began with modest hopes — hopes now wrapped in something larger. "Every game is a message home," linebacker Courtney Watson said. "We're still here."

New Orleans' next "home" game, against the New York Giants, is actually Monday night in the Meadowlands — a scheduling quirk that gave the displaced Saints a second consecutive road game to open the season.