Bill Plaschke: A Saints victory would be a Super pick-me-upper

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — One helmet is an ancient symbol of rebirth, an eternal emblem of hope.

The other helmet is footwear for a horse.

America needs the New Orleans Saints to win the Super Bowl.

One team's history can be found in a museum featuring paper bags once worn by embarrassed fans and tear-stained tissues used by happily weeping fans.

The other team's history can be found in a Mayflower moving truck.

America needs the New Orleans Saints to win the Super Bowl.

There is no cheering in the press box, but that rule doesn't apply to the sport section, and so allow me a few moments to lead America in a chant that nobody really understands for a team that has absolutely no chance in a place that has taken them more than four decades to find.

Who Dat Say Dey Gonna Beat Dem Saints?

In Sunday's 44th Super Bowl at Sun Life Stadium, everything says the Indianapolis Colts. Statistics say the Colts. Rosters say the Colts. History says the Colts.

But I'm rooting like crazy for the other guys because America has rarely needed a sports champion the way it needs the Saints.

As our country lurches and heaves through the ankle-deep sand of its economic recovery, it has not helped the national psyche that every time we turn to our national pastimes for assurances that the little guy can still survive, we run smack into Goliath.

The New York Yankees won the World Series. Gee, that was fun. The Los Angeles Lakers won the NBA championship. Loved in L.A., hated everywhere else.

North Carolina won the Final Four. Bear Bryant's old team won the Bowl Championship Series. Jimmie Johnson won his fourth consecutive NASCAR championship. The Connecticut women's basketball team has won 61 consecutive games.

And now Peyton Manning is getting ready to win another Super Bowl?

No thanks. Not now. Please. America needs to believe in the impossible again. America needs another dose of revival.

America needs to believe that 43 years of hard work, even filled with more bad days than good, can still amount for something. America needs to believe that such work on the sporting field can still ease the pain of real life.