We concluded our item regarding the Super Bowl parade with a reference to the season-opening Thursday night game that will be hosted by the Saints.
And so to one of eight teams will fall the unenviable task of facing the Saints in their first regular-season home game as Super Bowl champions.
For the 2010 season, the choices are: the Falcons, Panthers, Buccaneers, Rams, Seahawks, Browns, Steelers, and Vikings.
The most likely choices are, in our view, the last two -- the Steelers and the Vikings
If the league wants to lure quarterback Brett Favre for another season, the better choice would be Minnesota. Guys who can’t make up their own minds often look for external signs, and an out-of-the-gates shot at wiping the bad taste out of his mouth by wiping up the Superdome floor with the Saints probably would be viewed by Favre as a message that he should lace up his orthopedic shoes for one more season.
Over the past few years, the prime-time games to be played during Week One are unveiled in conjunction with the league meetings in late March. So Favre will have five months or so to ponder whether returning right away to the Superdome will draw him back to the Metrodome.
Both the Steelers and Vikings games likely will be televised at some point in prime time, given that the Saints have now arrived as a major television attraction, and given that the rest of their home schedule (with the exception of the Falcons game) is roughly as intriguing as a bowl of unflavored gelatin.
What say you, PFT Planet? Which team do you think it will be? Which team do you want it to be?