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The New Orleans Saints are a professional American football team based in New Orleans , Louisiana . The Saints are currently champions of 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. 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 and had winning records in the non-playoff seasons. In the 2000 season, the Saints defeated the defending Super-Bowl champion St. Louis Rams in dramatic fashion for the team's first playoff win.

The Saints' home stadium is the Louisiana Superdome. The team has played its home games in the dome since 1975. However, due to damage caused by Hurricane Katrina to the New Orleans area, the Saints' 2005 home opener was played at Giants Stadium, the home stadium of their opponent, the New York Giants. The remainders of their 2005 home games were split between the Alamodome in San Antonio , Texas , and LSU's Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge , Louisiana . After a $185 million renovation of the historic stadium, the team returned to the Superdome for the 2006 season. The team played its 2006 home opener in front of a sold-out crowd and national television audience on September 25, 2006, defeating its NFC South rival, the Atlanta Falcons by a score of 23-3.

The Saints are one of three teams, including the Houston Texans (a 2002 expansion team) and the Jacksonville Jaguars (a 1995 expansion team), never to have played in either a Super Bowl or any other NFL Championship. They are, by far, the oldest franchise (with nearly 30 years separating them and the next-oldest team, the Jaguars) with that distinction. The Saints and Jaguars, however, have both qualified for conference championship games, with the Saints qualifying for the NFC Championship Game on January 13, 2007, after defeating the Philadelphia Eagles 27-24 in the divisional round of the playoffs. They are the first team in NFL history to reach a conference championship after losing 13 or more games the previous season. They suffered a 39-14 loss the following week to the Chicago Bears in the NFC Championship.

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