Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index The New Orleans Saints are a National Football League team based in New Orleans, Louisiana. First Season: 1967 as an NFL expansion team Home stadium: Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans, Louisiana Uniform colors: Black, Old gold, and White Helmet design: Gold helmet with a black fleur-de-lis League championships won: none Franchise history New Orleans was granted an NFL franchise on 1 November, 1966. John W. Mecom, Jr became the majority stockholder, and the team was named the Saints on 9 January 1967. Despite a 94 yard opening kickoff return for a touchdown by John Gilliam, the Saints lost their first match 27-13 to the Los Angeles Rams. Their first season record was 3-11. Current Saints owner Tom Benson acquired the franchise in 1985, and hired Jim Finks as general manager and Jim Mora as head coach. That combination provided the Saints with their first ever winning record, 12-3 in 1987. Current coach Jim Haslett has held the post since 2000, in which year he took the team to the playoffs but lost to the Minnesota Vikings. The Saints failed to make the playoffs in 2001 and 2002, although in the latter year they had the distinction of beating the eventual Super Bowl XXXVII winners Tampa Bay in both their regular season matches. Players of note Pro Football Hall of Famers: Jim Finks Current stars: Aaron Brooks Joe Horn Deuce McAllister Retired numbers: Jim Taylor 31 Doug Atkins 81 Not to be forgotten: Tom Dempsey Archie Manning New Orleans Saints official web site This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.