excerpt:
JACKSON, MISS. -- In real life, Cinderella stories don't end with that "happily ever after" part.
In real life, Cinderella has to come back the next year, slog her way through a sweltering training camp in some place like Jackson, Miss., and deal with a whole new level of pressure and expectations.
Putting aside the fairy tales this week provided a chance to sift through the NFL record books, instead.
What usually happens next for teams such as the 2006 Saints, who climbed out of the cellar with the greatest season in franchise history? A dig through history, from the 1929 Giants to the 1999 Rams to the collected works of Bill Parcells, rendered a surprising discovery:
Only six teams in NFL or AFL history accomplished what the Saints did last year -- improving by at least seven games with a first-time head coach.
The last team to do it? The New Orleans Saints in 2000.
That's right. Jim Haslett and Sean Payton joined pretty select company when they took turns lifting the Saints out of the cellar -- a short list that includes the Giants' LeRoy Andrews in 1929, the Raiders' Al Davis in 1963, the Colts' Ted Marchibroda in 1975 and the Chargers' Bobby Ross in 1992.
It's kind of a neat statistic. But then again, it's also kind of scary.
Those 2000 Saints never went back to the playoffs, hovering around .500 for four years before the bottom dropped out in 2005.
But don't worry. There are just as many happy endings as cautionary tales in recent NFL history.
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