New Orleans Saints Tickets : The Saints' Most Important Rival Is The Atlanta Falcons

The New Orleans Saints are a professional American football team based in New Orleans, Louisiana.The Saints were founded on November 1, 1966 as an expansion team and played their home games at Tulane Stadium through the 1974 season.

Their early record was marked by a lack of success; they went more than a decade before they managed to finish a season with a .500 record, two decades before having a winning season, and over four decades before finally reaching the Super Bowl. The team's first successful years were from 1987/1992, when the team made the playoffs four times and had winning records in the non-playoff seasons. In the 2000 season, the Saints defeated the then-defending Super Bowl champion St. Louis Rams for the team's first playoff win.

The Saints reached the NFC Championship Game in the 2006 season but lost 39/14 to the Chicago Bears. They repeated this feat in their most successful season in 2009, this time winning the game and their first conference championship to send them to their first Super Bowl appearance. At Super Bowl XLIV, the Saints won the city of New Orleans its first league championship, defeating the Indianapolis Colts 31-17.Since 1975, the Saints' home stadium has been the Louisiana Superdome, where they have played their home games every season except for 2005, due to the disruption caused by Hurricane Katrina.

The Saints 2010 season began in the Superdome as the Super Bowl Champion New Orleans Saints defeated the Minnesota Vikings 14-9, in a rematch of the 2009 NFC Championship Game. It was played on Thursday September 9, 2010 and televised on NBC, making it the first time the Saints have opened the NFL's season at home. On Sunday, August 8, 2010, NBC announced the televised opening festivities of the evening would begin with Taylor Swift and Dave Matthews Band.

On December 27, 2010 with a 17-14 win against the Atlanta Falcons in Atlanta the Saints clinched a playoff appearance (wild card). This marked the first time a team in the NFC South the Saints make back-to-back playoff appearances since the division was formed in 2002. The Saints would face the Seattle Seahawks for the wild-card opener at Qwest Field. The Seahawks were the 1st NFL team to capture their division with a sub.-500 regular season record (7-9). Drew Brees completed a postseason-record 39 passes for 404 yards and two touchdowns.

Despite throwing 60 passes and hindered by a lack of depth at running back, last year's Super Bowl MVP wasn't intercepted and rallied the Saints within 34-30 in the fourth quarter. In the end, his efforts were negated by a defense that couldn't get enough stops and a late TD run by Marshawn Lynch breaking about a half-dozen tackles with 3:22 left which allowed Seattle to finish off the Saints. Final score 41-36.

The Saints' oldest and most important rival is the Atlanta Falcons. The two clubs joined the NFL within a year of each other as expansion teams and have been pitted against one another in the NFC West and later the NFC South.The Saints also have a developing rivalry with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, which have been part of the NFC South with the Saints since 2002.The teams actually played each other quite often as non-division rivals.

Between 1977-2001, there were only five years in which the teams did not play. This includes 12 years in a row from 1981-92 - all as a result of the scheduling formulas in place prior to 2002.The Saints won 13 of 20 games as non-division opponents. Since becoming division rivals the series has been even, with 9 games each won by both New Orleans and Tampa Bay.One notable pre-division game is a 1977 matchup that resulted in Tampa Bay's first win in franchise history after previously starting out 0-26 overall.