The New Orleans Saints are a professional American football team based in New Orleans, Louisiana. They currently belong to the Southern Division of the National Football Conference (NFC) in the National Football League (NFL).

Founded in 1967, the Saints have struggled throughout their history. Their early years were especially bleak; they went more than a decade before they managed to finish a season with a .500 record and two decades before having a winning season. Their greatest years of success were from 1987-1992, when they made the playoffs four times. The team experienced a brief renaissance in 2000, defeating the St. Louis Rams in dramatic fashion for the team's only playoff win.

Due to damage caused by Hurricane Katrina to the New Orleans area, the Saints' 2005 home games were split between the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas and Louisiana State University's Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. On December 30, 2005, the team and the league announcing that the club will play a split schedule again in 2006 between Baton Rouge and New Orleans' Louisiana Superdome, with the first game at the Superdome on September 24 of that year. However, it is undetermined where the Saints will play in 2007 and beyond.

Currently, the Saints are one of three teams, along with Jacksonville and Houston never to have played in either a Super Bowl or any other NFL Championship Game. They are the oldest franchise with that dubious distinction.

The NFL awarded the city of New Orleans an NFL franchise on 1 November, 1966. John W. Mecom, Jr. became the majority stockholder, and the team was named the Saints on 9 January 1967, since the franchise had been granted to New Orleans on All Saints' Day. Despite a 94 yard opening kickoff return for a touchdown by John Gilliam, the Saints lost their first game 27-13 to the Los Angeles Rams. Their first season record was 3-11, and they could not manage to even finish as high as second in their division until 1979. That 1979 team and the 1983 team were the only ones to even finish at .500 until 1987.

One of the franchise's shining moments came on 8 November 1970, when Tom Dempsey kicked an NFL record-breaking 63-yard field goal to defeat the Detroit Lions by a score of 19-17 in the final seconds of the game. This record, although equaled 29 years later by Jason Elam of the Denver Broncos, has yet to be broken.

In 1980, the Saints lost their first 14 games, prompting fans to design paper bags to wear over their heads to the team's home games; the bags rendered the club's name as the "'Aints" rather than the "Saints," and this practice then spread rapidly, first to fans of other poorly-performing teams within the NFL, and ultimately to those of other American team sports as well, and has become a firmly-established custom throughout the United States.

Current Saints owner Tom Benson acquired the franchise in 1985, and hired Jim Finks as general manager and Jim Mora as head coach. That combination provided the Saints with their first-ever winning record and playoff appearance, going 12-3 in 1987, which had one fewer game than normal due to a players' strike. Another playoff berth would follow in 1990, and the club's first division title came in 1991. Although they made the playoffs four times under Mora's tenure, they were never able to win a playoff game. Mora coached the Saints until the middle of the 1996 season, when he stepped down halfway through a dismal 3-13 season.

After the end of the 1996 season, legendary former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka was hired to replace Mora. Although this initially generated a lot of excitement among Saints fans, Ditka's tenure ended up being a disappointment. The Saints went 6-10 in their first two seasons under Ditka (1997 and 1998). During the 1999 NFL Draft, Ditka surprised many by trading all of his picks for that season, as well as the first-round and third-round picks for the following season, to draft star University of Texas running back Ricky Williams in the first round. Unfortunately, the bold move didn't help the Saints, as they went 3-13 in 1999. Ditka, most of his coaching staff, and general manager Bill Kuharich were fired at the end of that season.

Jim Haslett held the post from 2000 to 2005. In his first year, he took the team to the playoffs but lost to the Minnesota Vikings a week after besting the St. Louis Rams for the team's first ever playoff win. Haslett struggled after inheriting the remains of Ditka's team in 2000. General Manager Randy Mueller was fired between the 2001 and 2002 seasons without explanation by Benson, and after winning the 2000 NFL Executive of the Year Award. The Saints failed to make the playoffs in 2001 and 2002, although in the latter year they had the distinction of beating the eventual Super Bowl XXXVII champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers in both of their regular season meetings. In 2003 the Saints again missed the playoffs after finishing 8-8. The 2004 season started poorly for the Saints, as they went 2-4 through their first six games and 4-8 through their first twelve games. At that point Haslett's job appeared to be in jeopardy; however, he managed to pull the team together and put on a four-game win streak, leaving the Saints in playoff contention in the final week of the season. In week 17, the Saints defeated division rivals Carolina; however, the Saints needed other results to break their way and when the St. Louis Rams beat the New York Jets in a thrilling overtime game the Saints were eliminated. Nevertheless, the four-game win streak to end the season left many Saints fans optimistic about the team's future prospects. Other Saints fans were disappointed with yet another mediocre year (8-8), leaving many to wonder why in such a competitive league as the NFL the Saints wouldn't fire a coach that had not been to the playoffs in over four seasons. He was fired after the 2005 odyssey in which the Saints finished 3-13, and did not play one regular season game in New Orleans due to Hurricane Katrina. On January 17, 2006, the Saints hired Sean Payton as their new head coach.