Battle of the Bayou Looming

Being located so closely together, the Saints and Texans normally have conjoined training camps, players would benefit from being able to get looks from players other than their own teammates, due to the labor lockout this summer, Coach Kubiak and Sean Payton called off the friendly camp for fear of the lockout disrupting the season, but this is not about the friendly interactions of two bayou city teams. As any resident of Houston or the neighboring suburbs will tell you, there is an abundance of Saints fans in that area for many reasons, and as the old western duel phrase goes “This town ain’t big enough for the two of us…”

As evidenced by the old rivalry between Texas A&M and Arkansas, and the more notorious rivalry of Texas and Oklahoma, football rivalries do not stay within state boundaries, after the Andre Johnson fight against Cortland Finnegan last year, the Texans-Titans rivalry is heating up, similar to the rivalry with Dallas is gaining a head of steam after the brawl that took place between the two teams’ fans last year in Reliant Stadium. With only 350 miles separating the two teams, most would think a rivalry could flourish, but none as formed due to Houston being in a separate conference and only having two previous meetings. Aside from single players skirmishes, majority of heat between professional football clubs is within the fan base, with that said, fans will develop disdain for teams within the division thus we have division rivals, which is a different type of rivalry than a location rivalry. A segment on Houston Sports Radio 610 escalated after fans of the two teams began extensive trash talking, as many of us know, many former Hurricane Katrina refugees stayed in Houston after New Orleans recovered from the damage done by the storm, many of them being Saints fans, and despite staying in Houston, have remained loyal to their team. After the Texans emerged victorious in the preseason game Saturday night, Houston and New Orleans have a meeting in the regular season and will certainly bring light to this matter and will hopefully spark a new rivalry between these two great teams.