MICHAEL KIRAL / L’Observateur / January 8, 2000

If there is one thing that can be said about Tom Benson is that he is a man of his word.

After the Saints lost to St. Louis in early December, Benson vowed tomake changes at season’s end. Those changes came three days after theSaints’ lost to Carolina to finish 3-13 and they were indeed sweeping ones.

Gone were coach Mike Ditka after three years at the helm. Gone werepresident/general manager Bill Kuharich and senior vice president Terry O’Neil. Gone were Ditka’s entire staff of 17 assistant coaches. With onesweeping brush of the broom, the Ditka-Kuharich era came to an end after 15 wins and 33 losses.

In a city that tried for so long to get legalized gambling, Benson and Kuharich made one of the biggest gambles of all when they hired Ditka in 1997. They were gambling that Ditka could relive the days of 1985 SuperBowl champion Chicago Bears in a league that had changed dramatically in the 12 years since those Bears dominated the NFL. They were betting thatDitka could be the answer for a franchise that, except for a short period of success in the late 1980s and early ’90s under Jim Finks and Jim Mora, has been the model of unanswered questions.

But as any gambler knows, when you bet big, you can win big or you can lose your shirt. In the case of Benson’s and Kuharich’s gamble, it was thehouse that won.

Ditka also gambled big in his three years as head coach. He bet on bothfavorites and long shots but his horses never seemed to cross the finish line as winners. Those horses had names – Heath Shuler, Chris Naeole,Andre Royal, Kerry Collins, Billy Joe Hobert, Eddie Kennison, Wally Williams and Ashley Ambrose. On their backs rode the hopes of Saints fansbut all left their fans nothing to do but tear up their tickets in disgust.

Ditka thought he found his Secretariat last April when he sent his entire draft to Washington in order to move up to select Ricky Williams.

Williams appeared to be the thoroughbred that would finally put Saints’ football in the winner’s circle. Instead, Williams, at least for the 1999season, was a hobbled show horse, unable to show whether he was worth the price. Ditka had put all his chips on one roll of the dice andunfortunately for both himself and the franchise, it had come up snake eyes.

So now it’s up to Benson to make another gamble. He’s already reshuffledthe deck. Now, it’s time for him to pick a hand he hopes to be a winner.Fourteen years ago, he did the same and came up with a pair of aces in Finks and Mora. Those two came as close to breaking the bank as any othercombination in the franchise’s history before fate dealt both another hand.

There are plenty of ponies and jockeys out there for Benson to choose from. Only time will tell if Benson’s choices this time will lead thefranchise to the winner’s line or the glue factory.

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