The NOLA 100: #96 The Last Good Party in the Dome
Remembering the Halloween in which Tom Brady cried like a bitch
The NOLA 100 looks back at the last good party in the Dome, Halloween 2021.
When Tom Brady joined the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2020, it gave the fans in Tampa Bay something they hadn’t had in a long time: hope.
More importantly, it heightened the delusions that the people in Tampa believed that they had a rivalry with the Saints.
No, seriously they thought this.
For people of a certain generation, the Bucs’ biggest rival, especially in the 90’s, was the Packers, due to their membership in the old NFC Central with the Lions, Bears, Vikings, and the aforementioned Packers.
The Bucs didn’t start playing the Saints on a yearly basis until 2002 when the NFC South was created.
More importantly, to most Saint fans the Bucs were just another team.
After beating the Seahawks the week before in Seattle on my birthday, the Bucs were next on the 2021 schedule for the Saints in the Dome, on Halloween of all days.
That weekend, all of the Saints Twitter legends converged on the city, giving Saints-Bucs a real Homecoming feeling. We just knew that the weekend was going to culminate with Jameis leading us to victory and keeping us on the path to an unprecedented fifth straight NFC South division title.
Then it happened.
Devin White horse collared Jameis Winston, forcing him to tear his ACL, which prompted the “Curse of Nicole”, a curse that I wrote about last year.
I don’t remember my reaction to that injury. Nor do I remember the food or drink I had when it happened. What I remember is falling asleep at a tailgate and then getting on my bike.
“I remember,” Saints fan Chey told me on my podcast in 2022, “telling a Bucs fan that we were still going to win this game even with Trevor Sieman behind center. Them boys were motivated to win that game.”
Late in the fourth quarter, as I plopped in one of the chairs in the main building of the complex I live in, my property manager Kathy had the game going on in her office.
Three minutes later, PJ Williams intercepted a pass from Tom Brady, ran it back for a touchdown, and in turn set off a party in the Dome and eliciting in yours truly giving Kathy a high-five.
For a brief moment in time, everything was right in the world.
I never dreamed that game would be the last great party in the Dome.