Seahawks finally come back to the Superdome and it’s time to rain points on them

November 10th, 2010: That was the last time the Seahawks came to the Superdome. The Saints cruised to a 34-19 win behind a run of the mill 384 yard, 4 touchdown passing day from Drew Brees. Jimmy Graham had 5 catches for 72 yards that day. The Seahawks were kept in it thanks to a perfect 4 for 4 kicking day by Olindo Mare, while David Hawthorne gave them 10 tackles and an interception. Those should all be names you recognize. Since then, the teams have played three times – all in Seattle – with games that all left scars on the Saints fan base in their own way.

January 8th, 2011: The Saints were the defending Super Bowl champions and an 11-5 wild card. Thanks to a stupid NFL rule, they had to travel to Seattle to play the 7-9 NFC West champion Seahawks. Most of you will remember this as the Marshawn Lynch run game. Oddly, the Saints were paced by two Julius Jones touchdowns (a former Seahawk) before he went down with an injury and the Saints were left with Heath Evans (another former Seahawk) as their lead back. The Saints would lose an emotional 41-36 game. If you need a painful reminder, here you go:

December 2nd, 2013: The 9-2 Saints traveled to the 10-1 Seahawks with NFC supremacy on the line. I remember the anticipation before this game being enormous. Both fan bases were jacked up all week. Sadly, from the opening kickoff this game was one way traffic. All that was left in the wake of the 34-7 beatdown was the certainty that one of those two teams would win the Super Bowl that year, and it wasn’t the Saints. The Saints ran into a complete buzzsaw and had no answers from start to finish.

January 11th, 2014: Just over a month later, the Saints were back in Seattle again for the playoffs. We braced ourselves for the worst given how things went down with the last visit. The Saints fought valiantly, losing only 23-15 despite never truly feeling in it.

There’s a lot to dislike about the Seattle Seahawks. Part of it is having to reluctantly concede how great their fan base is. We think we’re the best, but they own a noise record that we attempted to break and failed. Their fans are knowledgeable and obnoxious, too, which adds fuel to the fire. There’s Russell Wilson. There’s the fact that they now have Jimmy Graham. There’s the fact that they had Brandon Browner, Stanley Jean-Baptiste and C. J. Spiller on their roster at various stages this year. Not surprisingly, none of them are on the team anymore (Spiller was waived this week). Pete Carroll is a happy go lucky 9/11 truther that somehow wins at every level. Richard Sherman is a pretty dislikable personality if you’re not a fan of the team he plays for. But mostly – they’ve kind of owned us. They’re better, they’ve embarrassed us in three straight games, and we’re bitter because of it. I would submit that besides the Dallas Cowboys, who are hated by the Saints fan base in perpetuity, the Seahawks are the non divisional opponent most disliked by “new” Saints fans (meaning fans that latched on in 2006 or later).

But there was one common denominator in those three games. They were all in the dead of winter and they were all in Seattle.

When the Seahawks come to New Orleans on Sunday, it’ll mark the first time since 2010 they do so and the first time in four head to head matchups. It will be the first time Brees gets to face this vaunted defense led by Richard Sherman (Sherman didn’t play in 2010) in a controlled temperature with no wind, no precipitation, and no crowd noise when the Saints have the ball. The Seahawks will have to defend an elite offense on the Saints terms this time, in a Dome.

The Saints come into Sunday’s game #2 in the NFL in yards gained on offense. They’re #1 in passing. They’re 3rd in points scored per game. Meanwhile, the Seahawks defense is tied for 1st with the Vikings for 1st with only 14.0 points given up per game. Seattle is 6th in overall defense. This matchup is once again an elite offense against an elite defense. Except this time the Seahawks won’t have cold weather and crowd noise to help them.

It’s payback time.